Category Archives: US News

Couple behind 2009 ‘balloon boy’ hoax in US granted pardons

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Richard and Mayumi Heene claimed son had floated away to try to get reality TV show

The husband and wife who pleaded guilty to criminal charges for staging the 2009 “balloon boy” hoax, in which they created a global media sensation with a false report that their son had floated away in a makeshift dirigible, have been pardoned by Colorado’s governor.

In granting executive clemency to Richard and Mayumi Heene, Governor Jared Polis said the couple, now 59 and 56, had paid their debt to society for a “spectacle” that wasted law enforcement time and resources.

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Pakistan court orders release of man charged over Daniel Pearl murder

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Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a suspect in US journalist’s 2002 killing, had conviction overturned this year

A court in Pakistan has ordered that a British-born Islamist militant charged with the 2002 kidnapping and murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl should be freed, his defence lawyer has said.

Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh was sentenced to death in 2002 for masterminding Pearl’s murder but the conviction was overturned this year. He has been in jail ever since awaiting the outcome of a series of appeals and legal arguments.

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UK bans flights from South Africa as New York to check on all British arrivals

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Visitors who have travelled from or through South Africa will be denied entry to England and all direct flights banned

A ban on all direct flights from South Africa to England came into force on Christmas Eve morning, while New York authorities announced they would visit arrivals from the UK to check they were quarantining, amid the spread of new variants of coronavirus in the UK and South Africa.

The UK health secretary, Matt Hancock, said the new mutation in South Africa was “highly concerning”, and was believed to be even more transmissible than the variant in the south-east of England that led to the introduction of tier 4 restrictions.

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Donald Trump’s latest wave of pardons includes Paul Manafort and Charles Kushner

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President also gives clemency to Roger Stone in second round of pardons since Tuesday

Donald Trump has pardoned another 26 people in his second big wave of clemency actions since Tuesday, marking yet another audacious application of presidential power to reward loyalists.

The US president pardoned his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, his longtime adviser Roger Stone, and Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner.

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Ghislaine Maxwell wanted to divorce husband ‘to protect him’, lawyers say

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Maxwell’s lawyers have asked for her release on a $28.5m bail package, and pointed to her marriage as a reason she wouldn’t flee

The British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell’s latest argument for bail in her sex trafficking case claimed that she and her husband had discussed a divorce of convenience “to protect him … from the terrible consequences of being associated with her”, according to Manhattan federal court papers filed Wednesday.

Maxwell has been jailed since her 2 July arrest for alleged involvement in the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking of minor girls. Maxwell had been a close confidante of Epstein as he cultivated a circle of powerful friends and associates across the world.

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Dozens sue Amazon’s Ring after camera hack leads to threats and racial slurs

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Class action claims weak security allowed hackers to take over the smart cameras used on doorbells and in homes

Dozens of people who say they were subjected to death threats, racial slurs, and blackmail after their in-home Ring smart cameras were hacked are suing the company over “horrific” invasions of privacy.

A new class action lawsuit alleges that lax security measures at Ring, which is owned by Amazon, allowed hackers to take over their devices. Ring provides home security in the form of smart cameras that are often installed on doorbells or inside people’s comes.

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Alaskan tribes, activists and businesses sue to save America’s biggest national forest

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Tongass national forest, which plays a key role in fighting climate crisis, poised for logging after US ruling


A coalition of Alaskan native tribes, conservation groups and small businesses have filed a lawsuit in an effort to save America’s largest national forest by overturning one of the Trump administration’s most contentious environmental rollbacks.

Protection for the Tongass national forest in Alaska, one of the world’s last intact temperate rainforests, which plays a crucial role in fighting climate change, has been gutted by a recent US government decision to overturn a two-decade ban on logging and road building.

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‘Our blood is cheaper than water’: anger in Iraq over Trump pardons

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Joe Biden to be lobbied to reverse decision to pardon security guards jailed over massacre

Iraqis have reacted with outrage to Donald Trump’s move to pardon four security guards from the security firm Blackwater who were jailed for a 2007 massacre that sparked an outcry over the use of mercenaries in war.

The four men were part of a security convoy that fired on civilians at a central Baghdad roundabout, killing 14 people including a nine-year old child and wounding many more.

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Revealed: Guardian/KHN find nearly 3,000 US health workers died of Covid

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New analysis shows a far higher number of healthcare worker deaths than those reported by the government

More than 2,900 US healthcare workers have died in the Covid-19 pandemic since March, a far higher number than that reported by the government, according to a new analysis by the Guardian and KHN.

Healthcare worker fatalities from the coronavirus skew young, with the majority under age 60 in the cases for which there is age data. People of color were disproportionately affected, and account for over 65% of fatalities in cases in which there is race and ethnicity data. After conducting interviews with relatives and friends of about 300 victims, Guardian and KHN learned that one-third of the deaths involved concerns over inadequate PPE.

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White supremacists plotted attacks on US power plants, FBI alleges

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  • Ohio teen ‘suggested buying ranch for militant training’
  • Court documents mistakenly unsealed last week

White supremacists plotted to attack power stations in the south-eastern US, and an Ohio teenager who allegedly shared the plan said he wanted the group to be “operational” on a fast-tracked timeline if Donald Trump were to lose his re-election bid, the FBI alleges in an affidavit that was mistakenly unsealed.

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Covid fatalities soar in Mexico as president condemned for inaction

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As the crisis worsens, Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s government has hardly changed its minimal restrictions

When Rufino Pacheco arrived at the hospital, his breath jagged and his legs buckling, a doctor thrust papers at his stepdaughter, asking for her approval to put him on a ventilator. But the elderly patient balked.

Less than 12 hours later, Pacheco died, hooked up to an oxygen tank in his bedroom, as his wife cried out, “Don’t leave me, old man.” Days later, she too fell sick with Covid-19, along with her adult son.

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Coronavirus live news: UK to ban travel from South Africa over new variant; Canada approves Moderna vaccine

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More areas of England moved up into tiers 4 and 3; UK has highest recorded daily rise in cases; new variant discovered in travellers from South Africa

The European Union’s transport commissioner, Adina Valean has said that she is pleased stranded trucks are now moving “slowly across the Channel”, as restrictions between France and the UK were lifted.

The initial restrictions were imposed after the UK discovered a new variant of the Covid-19 virus, which, reportedly has a faster transmission rate.

Around 10.000 truck drivers are seeking to get back in the EU. Other thousands are already in the Dover area in their vehicles.

We worked hard these days to unblock a crisis between two European countries, France and the UK.
We issued a communication appealing for proportional, non-discriminatory measures and the lift of any restrictions for transport workers.

I am pleased that at this moment, we have trucks slowly crossing the channel, and I want to thank UK authorities that they started testing the drivers at a capacity of 300 tests per hour.

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Pardons sink Trump further into swamp of his own shamelessness

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Analysis: President sanctions first federal execution of a woman in 67 years – but war criminals, fraudsters and Russia-linked cronies go free

Lisa Montgomery is set to become the first woman put to death by the US federal government in 67 years. On Tuesday senators including Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren wrote to the justice department demanding an investigation into an “unprecedented spree” of federal executions on Donald Trump’s watch.

A few hours later the president announced a slew of 15 pardons. Strikingly they included four military contractors imprisoned for the killing of unarmed men, women and children in Iraq. In short, war criminals.

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Trump pardons Blackwater contractors jailed for massacre of Iraq civilians

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Four guards fired on unarmed crowd in Baghdad in 2007, killing 14 and sparking outrage over use of private security in war zones

President Donald Trump has pardoned four Blackwater security guards who were given lengthy prison sentences for killing 14 civilians in Baghdad in 2007, a massacre that caused international uproar over the use of private contractors in war zones.

The four – Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard and Nicholas Slatten – were part of an armoured convoy that opened fire indiscriminately with machine-guns and grenade launchers on a crowd of unarmed people in the Iraqi capital. Known as the Nisour Square massacre, the slaughter was seen as a low point in the conflict in Iraq.

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Joe Biden won’t inherit Trump’s millions of Twitter followers

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Move marks a departure from past practice as in 2017 Twitter transferred followers of Obama administration accounts to Trump

Joe Biden will not inherit Donald Trump’s millions of followers on the official president of the United States and White House Twitter accounts when he assumes the presidency, marking a departure from past social media practice, the Democratic president-elect’s team said on Tuesday.

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New museums and Smokey Bear: what’s in the $900bn US stimulus package?

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Tucked into a 5,593-page bill are a range of obscure provisions that appear to have little to do with fortifying a fragile economy

Late on Monday night, Congress approved a $900bn stimulus package which will deliver financial aid to millions of families and businesses facing economic distress from coronavirus pandemic. Though far smaller than a bill lawmakers passed at the outset of the pandemic, earlier this year, the measure is one the largest pieces of legislation in US history.

Related: Covid could shorten US life expectancy by up to three years, experts say

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‘Darkest days ahead’: Joe Biden gives sobering message on Covid – video

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Biden said the US would have dark days ahead in tackling the coronavirus pandemic and things would get worse before they improved.

Monday saw the Covid-19 cases pass 18 million in the US according to data from Johns Hopkins University, and Biden said the vaccine rollout would not change trends quickly

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Dr Fauci feels ‘extreme confidence’ in Covid vaccine as he gets jab – video

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Dr Anthony Fauci was injected with his first dose of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine and he said he hoped it would encourage millions of other Americans to do the same.

The top US infectious diseases expert said he felt 'extreme confidence of the safety and efficacy of this vaccine'

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Trump loyalists aim to block Biden’s goal to rejoin Iran and Paris agreements

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Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham urge Trump to submit Iran nuclear deal and Paris climate agreement to Senate to undercut future attempts to revive them

Two prominent Trump loyalists in the US Senate, Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham, are reportedly pressing the president to submit the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate agreement to the chamber for ratification, in a last-minute attempt to scupper Democratic plans to take America back into the accords.

Related: Senior Republican says party’s final election challenge will ‘go down like a shot dog’

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