Category Archives: US News

Revealed: Harvard publisher cancels entire journal issue on Palestine shortly before publication

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As Harvard’s feud with Trump escalated, so did tensions over an ‘education and Palestine’ issue of a prestigious journal. Scholars blame the ‘Palestine exception’ to academic freedom

In March 2024, six months into Israel’s war in Gaza, education in the territory was decimated. Schools were closed – most had been turned into shelters – and all 12 of the strip’s universities were partially or fully destroyed.

Against that backdrop, a prestigious American education journal decided to dedicate a special issue to “education and Palestine”. The Harvard Educational Review (HER) put out a call for submissions, asking academics around the world for ideas for articles grappling with the education of Palestinians, education about Palestine and Palestinians, and related debates in schools and colleges in the US.

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Death of Malcolm-Jamal Warner shocks fans: ‘We saw ourselves in him’

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Actor’s Theo Huxtable provided an entire generation of Black youth and teens a relatable character

For Black youth and teens growing up in the mid-1980s, The Cosby Show offered something rarely seen on television up until that time: a sitcom that placed characters who looked like them in a positive light.

And Malcolm-Jamal Warner’s Theo Huxtable was the character generation X most related to. Fans took quickly to social media on Monday as news of Warner’s accidental drowning in Costa Rica spread.

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Trump officials release FBI records on MLK Jr despite his family’s opposition

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About 200,000 pages of surveillance records released despite objection from slain civil rights leader’s family

The Trump administration has released records of the FBI’s surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr, despite opposition from the slain Nobel laureate’s family and the civil rights group that he led until his 1968 assassination.

The release involves an estimated 200,000 pages of records that had been under a court-imposed seal since 1977, when the FBI first gathered the records and turned them over to the National Archives and Records Administration.

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Britain told US that invading Iraq could cost Blair his premiership, papers reveal

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Adviser to former PM said Bush’s pursuit of regime change in Baghdad could also cause ‘regime change in London’

The stark terms in which the US was warned that invading Iraq without a second UN security council resolution could cost Tony Blair his premiership have been revealed in newly released documents.

Blair’s foreign policy adviser, David Manning, warned Condoleezza Rice, the then US national security adviser: “The US must not promote regime change in Baghdad at the price of regime change in London.”

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Harvard to ask court to declare Trump’s $2bn funding freeze unlawful – US politics live

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Top US university returns to court to fight against funding freeze that halted major research efforts

Ever since Donald Trump began his second presidency, he has used an “invented” national energy emergency to help justify expanding oil, gas and coal while slashing green energy – despite years of scientific evidence that burning fossil fuels has contributed significantly to climate change, say scholars and watchdogs.

It’s an agenda that in only its first six months, has put back environmental progress by decades, they say.

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Harvard heads to court to argue Trump administration’s $2.6bn in cuts were illegal

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Ruling in the university’s favor would reverse funding freezes that became cuts as Trump administration escalated fight

Harvard University will appear in federal court Monday to make the case that the Trump administration illegally cut $2.6bn from the storied college – a pivotal moment in its battle against the federal government.

If US district Judge Allison Burroughs decides in the university’s favor, the ruling would reverse a series of funding freezes that later became outright cuts as the Trump administration escalated its fight with the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university. Such a ruling, if it stands, would revive Harvard’s sprawling scientific and medical research operation and hundreds of projects that lost federal money.

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‘It’s really theft’: the Republican plan to redraw Texas maps – and grab more power

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Democrats are livid over the governor’s plan to redraw districts at a time when Texas officials are supposed to be focused on recovery from the floods

A plan for Texas to redraw its congressional districts and gain five additional Republican seats barrels through flimsy legal arguments and political norms like a rough-stock rodeo bronco through a broken chute.

But the fiddly process of drawing the maps to Republicans’ advantage for 2026 may require more finesse than cowboy politics can produce.

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Pope condemns Gaza war’s ‘barbarity’ as 93 reported killed by Israeli fire while waiting for food | First Thing

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Israeli forces open fire on Palestinians in one of bloodiest incidents involving aid seekers. Plus, Ellen DeGeneres confirms she moved to the UK because of Donald Trump

Good morning.

Pope Leo XIV has condemned the “barbarity” of the war in Gaza and the “indiscriminate use of force” as Gaza’s civil defence agency said at least 93 Palestinians had been killed queueing for food, and Israel issued fresh evacuation orders for areas packed with displaced people.

What has Israel said about the killings? Israel’s military said soldiers had shot at a gathering of thousands of Palestinians in northern Gaza who it claimed posed a threat, and it was aware of some casualties. But it said the numbers reported by officials in Gaza were far higher than its initial investigation found. It did not immediately comment on the incidents in the south.

Why else is Ice in the news? An 82-year-old man in Pennsylvania was secretly deported to Guatemala – a country to which he has no connection – after visiting an immigration office last month to replace his lost green card, according to his family, who have not heard from him since and were initially told he was dead.

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‘It’s a madhouse’: US state department workers reeling after Trump’s firings

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About 3,000 workers have left the agency through firings and buyouts in a move Democrats and staff call ‘unlawful’

Workers at the US state department say firings, resignation buyouts, a proposed budget cut of 48%, and reorganization under the Trump administration has left staff with low morale and will likely have long-term impacts.

Foreign programs and services aimed towards LGBTQ+ communities, maternal and reproductive health, and minority groups have been removed or cut in place of far-right ideological policies being pursued by a 26-year-old senior adviser and Trump appointee at the agency.

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Zelenskyy accuses Russia of ‘assault on humanity’ after latest drone barrage

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Germany vows to expedite delivery of Patriot systems as drone strikes Kyiv metro station sheltering civilians

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of “an assault on humanity” after a barrage of drones and missiles hit Ukraine, as Germany promised to supply five Patriot air-defence systems to help an under-pressure Kyiv.

Ukraine’s president said Moscow had launched more than 420 drones and more than 20 missiles in its latest overnight attack, killing at least two people and targeting a metro station in the capital where people were sheltering.

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Pat Tillman’s brother arrested for driving into California post office – report

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Late NFL star’s brother, Richard Tillman, taken into custody as suspect after crash causes building to go up in flames

Police are investigating a car that crashed into a post office in San Jose, California, early on Sunday, causing the building to go up in flames, authorities said. Police reportedly took a Richard Tillman – brother of NFL star turned army enlistee Pat Tillman – into custody as a suspect.

The crash happened shortly before 3am at the office located in a strip mall south of downtown, according to the San Jose police department. No injuries were reported.

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One dead and two missing after six people swept down waterfall in Oregon

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Search and rescue operation under way after group went over Dillon Falls on the Deschutes River

One person has died while two others remain missing after six people were swept down a waterfall in Oregon over the weekend.

On Saturday, the Deschutes county sheriff’s office announced a multi-agency search and rescue operation after the group went over Dillon Falls on the Deschutes River west of Bend on Saturday afternoon.

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Ice chief says he will continue to allow agents to wear masks during arrest raids

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Legal advocates and attorneys general argue practice poses accountability issues and contributes to a climate of fear

The head of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) said on Sunday that he will continue allowing the controversial practice of his officers wearing masks over their faces during their arrest raids.

As Donald Trump has ramped up his unprecedented effort to deport immigrants around the country, Ice officers have become notorious for wearing masks to approach and detain people, often with force. Legal advocates and attorneys general have argued that it poses accountability issues and contributes to a climate of fear.

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Family of man killed after his tent was crushed by a bulldozer sues Atlanta

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Cornelius Taylor was killed during a sweep of a homeless encampment in city’s preparation for MLK weekend

The family of a man who was killed after city workers crushed his tent with a bulldozer during a sweep of a homeless encampment in Atlanta, Georgia, filed a lawsuit against the city on Friday over his death, calling it “tragic and preventable”.

The lawsuit filed by Cornelius Taylor’s sister and son alleges that city employees failed to look to see if there was anyone inside the tents in the encampment before using a bulldozer to clear it in the 16 January sweep. Taylor, 46, was inside one of the tents and was crushed by the truck when his tent was flattened, the lawsuit says.

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Tech CEO caught with company’s HR head on Coldplay kiss cam resigns

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Andy Byron leaves startup Astronomer after he and Kristin Cabot were placed on leave over Jumbotron incident

The married CEO who was filmed at a Coldplay concert in the US with his arms around his company’s HR head in a video that went viral has now resigned, the company Astronomer said on Saturday.

In a post on Linkedin, the software startup said: “Andy Byron has tendered his resignation, and the Board of Directors has accepted.”

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Ukraine proposes new round of peace talks with Russia next week

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Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterates willingness to meet the Russian president Vladimir Putin face to face

Kyiv has proposed to Moscow a new round of peace talks next week, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday, after negotiations stalled in early June.

Two rounds of talks in Istanbul between Moscow and Kyiv failed to result in any progress towards a ceasefire, instead yielding large-scale prisoner exchanges and deals to return the bodies of killed soldiers.

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Rubio moves to strip US visas from eight Brazilian judges in Bolsonaro battle

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Move by Marco Rubio is latest attempt by Trump administration to help former president avoid justice over alleged coup

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has reportedly stripped eight of Brazil’s 11 supreme court judges of their US visas as the White House escalates its campaign to help the country’s former president Jair Bolsonaro avoid justice over his alleged attempt to seize power with a military coup.

Bolsonaro, a far-right populist with ties to Donald Trump’s Maga movement, is on trial for allegedly masterminding a murderous plot to cling to power after losing the 2022 election to his leftwing rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro is expected to be convicted by the supreme court in the coming weeks and faces a jail sentence of up to 43 years.

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Trump requests release of Epstein court documents but says ‘nothing will be enough for the troublemakers’ – US politics live

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Move seeks to quell controversy that has engulfed the administration since it said it would not release more files from Epstein’s sex trafficking case

As Donald Trump tries to claim he was “not a fan” of Jeffrey Epstein, photos, videos and anecdotes paint a picture of their relationship, writes Adam Gabbatt:

Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, has called for Barack Obama and former senior US national security officials to be prosecuted after accusing them of a “treasonous conspiracy” intended to show that Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election win was due to Russian interference.

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Trump’s EPA eliminates research and development office and begins layoffs

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Administration’s move to cut thousands of agency jobs will be devastating for US public health, union warns

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said on Friday it is eliminating its research and development arm and reducing agency staff by thousands of employees. One union leader said the moves “will devastate public health in our country”.

The agency’s office of research and development (ORD) has long provided the scientific underpinnings for the EPA’s mission to protect the environment and human health. The EPA said in May it would shift its scientific expertise and research efforts to program offices that focus on major issues such as air and water.

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Health experts raise alarm over RFK Jr’s ‘war on science’ amid mass firings and budget cuts

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Experts warn that the dangerous ideologically driven cuts at HHS will have long-term consequences for healthcare

The Trump administration’s “war on science” appears to have entered a new phase in the aftermath of a recent supreme court decision that empowered health and human services secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, a prominent vaccine sceptic, and other agency leaders, to implement mass firings – effectively greenlighting the politicization of science.

The decision comes as Kennedy abruptly canceled a scheduled meeting of a key health care advisory panel, the US Preventive Services Task Force, earlier this month. That, combined with his recent removal of a panel of more than a dozen vaccine advisers, signals that his dismantling of the science-based policymaking at HHS is likely far from over.

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