Category Archives: US News

I want this pandemic to end – yet I secretly pine for another lockdown

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For some of us, living with Covid the past 18 months gave us permission to slow down, and to re-evaluate how we want to live when this is finally over

When I walked out of my town’s massive conference center in early April, a second Pfizer shot fresh in my arm, a flood of emotions swelled in me. Creeping behind the feelings of joy and anticipation, I felt a strange bit of sadness that, all the way home, I could not shake. When I walked into my house and my three-year-old dashed into my arms, it hit me.

‘I think I’m going to miss being locked down,’ I realised, in disbelief.

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Biden said America had ‘gained the upper hand’ over Covid – has Delta changed the game?

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A month ago, Americans were getting vaccinated, cases and deaths were falling, and Biden seemed to have the virus in his grasp. Not so fast

It was not supposed to be this way.

A month ago Joe Biden appeared to have victory over the coronavirus pandemic within his grasp. As tens of millions of Americans got vaccinated, cases, hospitalizations and deaths were falling precipitously.

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How Cuomo went from #MeToo ally to a one-man battle to discredit women

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The New York governor’s self-defense follows the playbook of powerful men accused of sexual misconduct – but it’s shocking given his history of advocacy

On 12 August, 2019 Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, held a glitzy bill ceremony in his executive mansion in Albany to mark the signing into law of new legislation designed to beef up sexual harassment protections for women in the workplace.

With a flourish of a pen, Cuomo sought to seal his reputation within the Democratic party as a champion of gender-based rights.

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Alarm as US Covid cases above 100,000 a day for first time since February

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  • Seven-day hospital admissions average up 40% from last week
  • Mississippi health official says Delta surging ‘like a tsunami’

Daily Covid-19 cases in the US moved above 100,000 a day for the first time since February, higher than the levels of last summer when vaccines were not available, and came as health officials sounded alarm over lagging rates of vaccination driving the surge of the infectious Delta variant.

The seven-day average of hospital admissions has also increased more than 40% from the week before, with health workers describing frustration and exhaustion as hospitals in Covid hotspots were again overwhelmed with patients, almost 20 months into the pandemic in the US.

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Venomous cobra missing in Texas after escaping from owner’s house

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  • West African banded cobra has not been yet found
  • Members of public warned not to approach snake

It can’t claim to be native to Grand Prairie, Texas, but a 6ft west African banded cobra was believed on Friday still to be roaming through the city of almost 200,000 on the outskirts of Dallas after escaping from its owner’s house.

Related: No 10 refuses stay of execution for alpaca Geronimo who tested positive for bovine TB

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‘It could feed the world’: amaranth, a health trend 8,000 years old that survived colonization

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Indigenous women in North and Central America are coming together to share ancestral knowledge of amaranth, a plant booming in popularity as a health food

Just over 10 years ago, a small group of Indigenous Guatemalan farmers visited Beata Tsosie-Peña’s stucco home in northern New Mexico. In the arid heat, the visitors, mostly Maya Achì women from the forested Guatemalan town of Rabinal, showed Tsosie-Peña how to plant the offering they had brought with them: amaranth seeds.

Back then, Tsosie-Peña had just recently come interested in environmental justice amid frustration at the ecological challenges facing her native Santa Clara Pueblo – an Indigenous North American community just outside the New Mexico town of Española, which is downwind from the nuclear facilities that built the atomic bomb. Tsosie-Peña had begun studying permaculture and other Indigenous agricultural techniques. Today, she coordinates the environmental health and justice program at Tewa Women United, where she maintains a hillside public garden that’s home to the descendants of those first amaranth seeds she was given more than a decade ago.

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West Nile virus: another alarming side effect of US drought

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Stagnant water caused by dry weather gives mosquitoes – the insect that spreads the virus – free rein, leading to an increased risk for humans

​​For five days in the late summer of 2019, doctors battled to bring down John Hayden’s high fever.

Hayden’s sudden onset of symptoms, including high fever, had everyone stumped, said his daughter Anne Hayden, and his body seemed to fail to respond to any treatment. He succumbed to the inexplicable illness just after Labor Day, his family at his side.

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Apple plans to scan US iPhones for child sexual abuse images

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Security researchers fear neuralMatch system could be misused to spy on citizens

Apple will scan photo libraries stored on iPhones in the US for known images of child sexual abuse, the company says, drawing praise from child protection groups but crossing a line that privacy campaigners warn could have dangerous ramifications. The company will also examine the contents of end-to-end encrypted messages for the first time.

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Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO union president, dies aged 72 – as it happened

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We’re wrapping up today’s live politics coverage. Here’s an updated summary of the day’s key political news:

Los Angeles County public health officials argue indoor mask policy is working

New numbers from the Los Angeles public health department suggest the county’s requirement that people once again wear masks indoors is working, the public health director argued today.

LA County public health director Barbara Ferrer cites these numbers as evidence that LA's mask law is working.

While cases in LA have increased 22%, they increased in the rest of CA by 57% in the same time frame. pic.twitter.com/NHt9wVXi3l

Ferrer also said that the rate of increase in cases in LA has slowed since the mask order went into effect.

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Virgin Galactic to sell space flight tickets starting at $450,000 a seat

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The company said it will have three consumer offerings: a single seat, a multi-seat package and a full-flight buy out

Virgin Galactic has said it will open ticket sales on Thursday for space flights starting at $450,000 a seat, weeks after the company’s billionaire founder, Richard Branson, took a high profile flight to to the edge of space.

Branson soared 55 miles (88 km) above the New Mexico desert aboard a Virgin Galactic rocket plane on 11 July and safely returned in the vehicle’s first fully crewed test flight to space, a symbolic milestone for a venture he started 17 years ago.

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The California Gold Rush town consumed by wildfire – in pictures

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The northern California town of Greenville was devastated by the Dixie fire, currently the largest wildfire in the state. The town dates back to the Gold Rush era with buildings more than a century old. Firefighters did all they could against the flames but the fast-moving blaze left many structures in ashes

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Biden grants ‘safe haven’ to Hongkongers in US amid China crackdown

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President signs memo allowing people from Hong Kong currently residing in US to live and work in country for 18 months

Joe Biden has granted temporary refuge to people from Hong Kong amid the Chinese government’s effort to crush the pro-democracy movement and tighten its control on a city once known for its freedom.

Related: Hong Kong singer and activist arrested over ‘corrupt conduct’

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Coronavirus live news: curfew and music ban on two Greek islands; Japan experts urge nationwide state of emergency

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Zakynthos island and Chania on Crete hit by measures aimed at cutting Covid spread; advisers to government in Tokyo say surge requires harsher measures

With 16 million Australians again plunged into lockdown as authorities struggle to contain Delta variant outbreaks, the national cabinet is set to examine how allowing vaccinated residents to be freed from restrictions could provide a “powerful incentive” to be immunised.

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, will meet with state and territory leaders on Friday amid fresh tensions between New South Wales and the commonwealth over the state’s prolonged and expanding lockdown and as Victoria enters its sixth lockdown following fresh Covid cases.

I have been vocal publicly about our need and want for more vaccines.

We know the vaccines stop the spread. They protect life and keep people out of hospital. That’s why it is so critical and every jurisdiction around the world is finding Delta challenging.

Related: National leaders to discuss easing restrictions for vaccinated Australians as half the country is locked down

Greece imposed a night-time curfew and banned music on two popular tourist islands on Thursday to contain the spread of Covid-19, its civil protection deputy minister said.

The Mediterranean country, which is trying to rebuild a tourist sector hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic, is also battling a wave of wildfires during a protracted heatwave, Reuters reports.

We call on the residents and visitors in these areas to fully comply with the measures to limit the spread of the virus.

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First Thing: impeachment efforts against Cuomo take shape after sexual harassment scandal

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Support falls away for New York governor. Plus: how signals for the start of menopause could help scientists extend women’s fertile years

Good morning.

The New York governor Andrew Cuomo, who was found by the state’s top prosecutor to have violated the law by sexually harassing 11 women, continued to cling on to power on Wednesday while critics prepared for an impeachment.

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Chinese liquor and e-cigarette shares fall amid state ‘vice industry’ crackdown

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Investors fear sectors may be next target after Beijing’s crackdown on digital gaming and tech companies

China’s liquor and e-cigarette companies have emerged as the latest market casualty in Beijing’s crackdown on “vice industries” after reports from state media that suggest they could be the next targets for stricter regulation.

Shares in e-cigarette and liquor makers slumped on Thursday after reports in the Chinese media of adolescent e-cigarette use and links between alcohol and cancer spooked investors who fear the state may be planning to broaden its crackdown on digital gaming and technology companies.

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‘The Pied Piper leading us off a cliff’: Florida governor condemned as Covid surges

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Ron DeSantis’s desire to keep state open amid Delta surge draws criticism from local leaders to the White House

Florida governor Ron DeSantis earned a new moniker this week as the resurgent coronavirus continued to wreak havoc on his state: the “Pied Piper of Covid-19, leading everybody off a cliff.”

The stark assessment of the Republican politician from Dan Gelber, the mayor of Miami Beach, came as Florida continued to set records for new cases and hospitalizations, saw worrying surges in both deaths and rates of positivity, and led the nation in pediatric Covid admissions.

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The Delta variant and ‘breakthrough’ infections: should Americans be worried?

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Experts say so-called breakthrough cases remain rare, and deaths among vaccinated people are ‘effectively zero’

The Delta variant caused an inflection point in the battle against the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States. So-called “breakthrough” cases, or Covid-19 infections in people who have already been vaccinated, upended the understanding of whether people in America needed to continue wearing masks to prevent spreading the coronavirus.

But breakthrough cases remain rare, and hospitalization and death for vaccinated people is “effectively zero” in many US states reporting this data.

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Top Republicans move to protect Trump from Capitol attack fallout

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Some party leaders blamed the former president in the charged moments after the insurrection – but are now embarking on a campaign of revisionism

Top Republicans in Congress are embarking on a new campaign of revisionism seven months after the attack on the Capitol, absolving Donald Trump of responsibility and blaming the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, for the 6 January insurrection perpetrated by a mob of Trump supporters.

Related: A Trump bombshell quietly dropped last week. And it should shock us all | Robert Reich

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Majority of NY assembly members support impeaching Cuomo if he doesn’t resign – live

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The Mexican government has launched legal action against US gunmakers in an unprecedented attempt to halt the flow of guns across the border, where US-made weapons are routinely used in cartel gun-battles, terror attacks on civilians – and increasingly to challenge the state itself.

The Mexican government is suing six gunmakers in a Massachusetts court, alleging negligence in their failure to control their distributors and that the illegal market in Mexico “has been their economic lifeblood”.

Related: Mexico sues US gunmakers in unprecedented bid to stop weapons crossing border

AP in Washington:

The state department has said that it is looking into the apparent disappearance of a nearly $6,000 bottle of whisky given more than two years ago to then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo by the government of Japan.

In a notice filed in the federal register, the department said it could find no trace of the bottle’s whereabouts and that there is an “ongoing inquiry” into what happened to the booze. The department reported the investigation in its annual accounting of gifts given to senior US officials by foreign governments and leaders.

Related: $5,800 whisky bottle given to Pompeo as gift missing, state department says

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Mexico sues US gunmakers in unprecedented bid to stop weapons crossing border

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  • Country seeking up to $10bn damages in Massachusetts lawsuit
  • US-made weapons used in cartel battles and attacks on civilians

The Mexican government has launched legal action against US gunmakers in an unprecedented attempt to halt the flow of guns across the border, where US-made weapons are routinely used in cartel gun-battles, terror attacks on civilians – and increasingly to challenge the state itself.

The Mexican government is suing six gunmakers in a Massachusetts court, alleging negligence in their failure to control their distributors and that the illegal market in Mexico “has been their economic lifeblood”.

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