Category Archives: US News

Half of emissions cuts will come from future tech, says John Kerry

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US climate envoy says people will not have to give up quality of life to achieve some of net zero goals

The US climate envoy, John Kerry, has said 50% of the carbon reductions needed to get to net zero will come from technologies that have not yet been invented, and said people “don’t have to give up a quality of life” in order to cut emissions.

He said Americans would “not necessarily” have to eat less meat, because of research being done into the way cattle are herded and fed in order to reduce methane emissions.

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Ignore the hype of Republicans threatening to ‘break away’ over Trump | Cas Mudde

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Anti-Trump Republicans get lots of media attention. That doesn’t mean they are relevant within the Republican party

“Over 100 Republicans, including former officials, threaten to split” from the Republican party, the New York Times declared on Tuesday. The next day the Washington Post upped the ante, headlining that the 100 Republicans were vowing “civil war”; the columnist Jennifer Rubin proclaimed the beginning of “the stampede away from the GOP”.

Sounds exciting, but what has really happened?

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Free solo … with a permit: will Yosemite’s new rules put a damper on climbing culture?

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The national park is instituting a permitting system for overnight rock climbers. Many see it as inevitable as the sport gets more popular

For years, rock climbers Graham Ottley and Keith Bouma-Gregson dreamed of scaling the 2,800ft (853 meters) pillar of granite known as the Lost Arrow Spire in Yosemite national park.

In early May the pair finally got their chance, making a climb that required spending two windy nights camped on tiny ledges with harnesses holding them to the rocks. But Ottley and Bouma-Gregson realize that soon it may not be as easy to enjoy Yosemite’s anything-goes climbing culture.

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Will Republicans back a commission to investigate the Capitol breach?

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Lawmakers faced with choice between embarrassing Trump and ignoring insurrection

House Democrats are poised to adopt legislation to create a 9/11-style commission to investigate the Capitol attack, in a move that will force Republicans to either embrace an inquiry that could embarrass Donald Trump – or turn a blind eye to a deadly insurrection.

Related: Liz Cheney: McCarthy should testify about Trump’s views on Capitol attack

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New York City Pride organisers to ban police from marching until 2025

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Event organisers say police are threatening to some in the LGBTQ+ community, while NYPD called decision ‘disheartening’

Organisers of New York City’s Pride events say they will ban police and other law enforcement personnel from marching in their annual parade until at least 2025 and will also seek to keep on-duty officers a block away from the celebration of LGBTQ+ people and history.

In a statement released on Saturday, NYC Pride urged members of law enforcement to “acknowledge their harm and to correct course moving forward”.

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North Carolina jury awards $75m to brothers wrongly convicted of 1983 murder

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Henry McCollum and Leon Brown spent decades in jail before DNA evidence cleared them of the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl

A jury in a North Carolina federal civil rights case has awarded $75m to two, intellectually disabled half-brothers who spent decades behind bars after being wrongfully convicted in the 1983 rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl.

The eight-person jury on Friday decided Henry McCollum and Leon Brown, who are both Black, should received $31m each in compensatory damages, $1m for every year spent in prison, the News & Observer reported. The jury also awarded them $13m in punitive damages.

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‘I reject hate speech’: Lakeith Stanfield on Clubhouse antisemitism scandal

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The actor Lakeith Stanfield has spoken out amid controversy over his presence in a Clubhouse room where participants made antisemitic remarks, saying: “Any kind of hate speech, I vehemently reject.”

Related: Lakeith Stanfield: ‘I don’t hold anything back’

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Tesla crash driver posted videos of himself riding without hands on wheel

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  • Steven Hendrickson, 35, killed earlier this month in fatal crash
  • Authorities say car may have been operating in autopilot mode

The driver of a Tesla car in a fatal crash that California highway authorities said may have been operating on autopilot posted social media videos of himself riding in the vehicle without his hands on the wheel or foot on the pedal.

The 5 May crash in Fontana, a city 50 miles east of Los Angeles, is also under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). It is the 29th case involving a Tesla the federal agency has investigated.

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Black US high school student forced to cut hair during softball game

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Nicole Pyles from North Carolina says ruling from umpires that the beads in her braids were against the rules was ‘humiliating’

A Black high school student in North Carolina was forced to cut her hair during a softball game last month, after umpires said beads in her braids violated rules set by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFSHS).

Related: Texas police fail to earn stripes as tiger which terrorised suburb goes missing

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Joe Biden’s Venmo account discovered in ‘less than 10 minutes’ – report

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  • Joe and Jill Biden accounts removed after BuzzFeed discovery
  • Website says app revelation raises national security questions

Venmo accounts for Joe Biden and Dr Jill Biden were removed on Friday after BuzzFeed News said it easily found the US president on the payment app – a discovery it said raised national security questions.

Related: Venmo: how the payment app exposes our private lives

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Relief, reluctance and confusion: New Yorkers react to mask-free guidance

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The CDC says people who have been vaccinated no longer have to wear face coverings in public – but not all are enthusiastic

When the CDC announced this week that people fully vaccinated against Covid-19 mostly didn’t have to wear masks indoors, many Americans saw this news as cause for celebration, feeling a sense of freedom after 15 months of itchy and cumbersome face coverings.

But in New York City, which was the US’s first coronavirus hotspot last spring, not everyone was rushing to rip off their masks, despite the official OK to do so.

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Biden makes progress on compromise effort to pass $2tn infrastructure bill

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President has held one-on-one meetings with members of both parties – but will Republicans torpedo his proposals?

Joe Biden has vowed to make every effort to work with Republicans until progress is impossible. Right now, he and conservative lawmakers see an infrastructure bill as still within the realm of possibility.

If so, it would mark a significant step forwards for Biden in passing a large part of his legislative agenda aimed at sparking the recovery of the pandemic-hit US economy. Biden’s team has consciously drawn comparisons to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s effort to lift America out of the Great Depression through government programs and big public works projects.

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‘Sad and so unfair’: Palestinian Americans celebrate a painful Eid

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The violence in Gaza and Jerusalem has made the conclusion to the Muslim holy month a somber event for many

The sound of the call to prayer resonated through Astoria Park in Queens, New York, on an Eid that saw sunny weather and an opportunity for human connection after a year spent apart during the pandemic.

The conclusion to the Muslim holy month of Ramadan is usually marked with a celebratory breakfast, new clothes, and a chorus of “Eid Mubaraks” and “Alhamdulillahs.”

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Can ‘Never Trump’ Republicans gain party control – or is it a lost cause?

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As Liz Cheney’s defiance turns her into one of the movement’s leaders some insist the party was their home long before Trump while others say it’s time to move on

Sixteen minutes and out. The purging of Liz Cheney from Republican leadership in the House of Representatives did not even go to a secret ballot. Instead a voice vote was all it took to confirm the party’s capitulation to Donald Trump and his “big lie” about a stolen election.

But Cheney went down swinging, vowing to reporters on Capitol Hill: “I will do everything I can to ensure that the former president never again gets anywhere near the Oval Office,” then using a high-profile TV interview to say of would-be challengers for her seat in Wyoming: “Bring it on.”

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Liz Cheney: McCarthy should testify about Trump’s views on Capitol attack

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Lawmakers agree to create bipartisan commission to investigate breach but questions remain over GOP support

The Republican House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, should testify before the commission to investigate the 6 January Capitol attack, the Wyoming representative Liz Cheney said on Friday, because he has “said publicly that he’s got information about the president’s state of mind that day”.

Related: ‘It’s hard to look at’: Donald Trump makes National Portrait Gallery debut

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Proud Boys leader received Covid-19 stimulus loans worth $15,500

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Enrique Tarrio received two paycheck protection program loans intended for small businesses, for ‘security systems services’

Government records show that Enrique Tarrio, chairman of the far-right Proud Boys group, received two federal government-backed paycheck protection program (PPP) loans worth a total of $15,500, the Guardian can reveal.

Tarrio, based in Miami, Florida, was approved for an initial loan of $7,750 on 30 March, and a succeeding loan for the same amount on 16 April. The loans were issued to Henry Tarrio, an anglicized form of his name which he has used on other occasions.

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AOC says Marjorie Taylor Greene is ‘deeply unwell’ after 2019 video surfaces

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The progressive representative says the Republican extremist’s behavior has ‘raised concerns’ among Democrats

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said the Republican extremist Marjorie Taylor Greene has a “fixation” on progressive members of Congress, and warned that Greene’s behavior has “raised concerns” among Democrats.

Greene, a Trump loyalist and a promoter of the QAnon conspiracy theory, was elected to the House in 2020, and has spent her first months in office harassing Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive Democrats.

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Russia officially dubs US and Czech Republic ‘unfriendly’ states

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Government says US missions can no longer hire local staff following law Putin signed last month

The Russian government has officially deemed the United States and the Czech Republic “unfriendly” states, and announced that US diplomatic missions could no longer employ local staff while Czech missions could employ a maximum of 19.

Moscow first announced the ban on the US hiring local staff last month as part of its retaliation for a slew of new US sanctions against Russia for interfering in the 2020 US presidential election and for involvement in the SolarWind hack of US federal agencies.

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Colorado man suspected in wife’s death allegedly voted for Trump in her name

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  • Suzanne Morphew disappeared on Mother’s Day last year
  • Barry Morphew ‘wanted Trump to win’ presidential election

A Colorado man suspected in the death of his wife, who disappeared on Mother’s Day last year, is also accused of submitting a fraudulent vote on her behalf for Donald Trump in November’s presidential election, court documents show.

Related: California woman may have washed $26m lottery fortune down the drain

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House Democrats and Republicans strike deal to investigate deadly Capitol insurrection – live

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  • Members of Congress agree to establish 10-person commission
  • Pro-Trump Elise Stefanik replaces Cheney as GOP conference chair

Here’s a quick summary of what’s happened so far today:

A new New York Times story points out just how influential Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s logo, with its bold, slanted text, was to future progressive candidates who emulated her poster’s style. It’s now seen all over the country in races big and small and was even used by a communist candidate in France.

Gavan Fitzsimons, a business professor at Duke University, told the Times that copycat posters are likely trying to get potential voters to subconsciously associate the candidate with Ocasio-Cortez.

NEW: The iconography of @AOC — my dive into how Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s logo has formed a new graphical language for progressivism.

From KY to VA to NYC and even France, imitators abound.https://t.co/eakjRoSEZn pic.twitter.com/sw9Z6oM0hz

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