Suspect set a wildfire then killed two firefighters and seriously wounded another in hours-long incident
As a wildfire began to sow panic in a small northern Idaho mountain community, a group of firefighters who rushed to put out the blaze instead found themselves in an unexpected shootout.
A man shot the firefighters who were battling a blaze in northern Idaho after they asked him to move his vehicle, killing two of them and wounding a third, a sheriff said on Monday.
Continue reading...White House says move will help stabilise country after ousting of Assad and could lead to broader sanctions relief
Donald Trump has signed an executive order to lift some financial sanctions on Syria in a move that the White House says will help stabilise the country after the ousting of Bashar al-Assad.
The order was designed to “terminate the United States’ sanctions programme on Syria”, a White House spokesperson said, cancelling a 2004 declaration that froze Syrian government property and limited exports to Syria over Damascus’s chemical weapons programme.
Continue reading...Trump officials hail U-turn as Mark Carney says decision to rescind digital services tax means revival of trade talks
The United States has said that Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney “caved” to demands from the White House after his government abruptly scrapped their digital services tax on US technology companies, which was set to go into effect on Monday.
“It’s very simple. Prime minister Carney and Canada caved to president [Donald] Trump and the United States of America,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a daily briefing.
Continue reading...President insulted Republican senator and threatened to back his primary challenger after he opposed domestic bill. Plus, how a generation of ‘virgins’ is leading America’s next sexual revolution
Good morning.
Thom Tillis announced yesterday that he would not run for re-election to the US Senate next year, one day after the North Carolina Republican’s vote against Donald Trump’s signature piece of domestic legislation prompted the president to launch a barrage of threats and insults – as well as promise to support a primary challenger to defeat him in their party’s 2026 primary.
What is the latest on Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’? The US Senate opened debate on the sprawling domestic policy legislation yesterday. Formal debate on the measure began after Democrats forced Senate clerks to read the entire 940-page bill aloud, to underscore their argument that the public is largely unaware of what the package actually contains.
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What’s happening with the planned ceasefire talks? Israeli officials are due in Washington for a new ceasefire push by the US, which is fuelling the war by providing weapons to the Israeli military. Israel’s strategic affairs minister, Ron Dermer, is expected at the White House later today for talks on Iran and Gaza, an Israeli official said.
Continue reading...Experts stress that a weakened Iran isn’t in a position to attack on US soil and doesn’t want to invite Trump’s wrath
As the war between Iran and Israel intensified, teasing the eventual involvement of the US military, American security agencies began to warn of a looming threat of Tehran-backed “sleeper cells” known to be active stateside that could be called in for retaliatory attacks.
But as the B-2 bombers struck nuclear sites across Iran and the Iranian military responded with a missile barrage on US bases in the region, a ceasefire took shape. In the end, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – Iran’s elite military and intelligence branch, wielding a global web of terrorist groups and agents acting on its behalf – didn’t appear to sponsor or carry out any covert operations inside the US, nor has it since.
Continue reading...Boy’s Virginia home town commends ‘remarkable heroism’ after he singlehandedly rescued grandmother and siblings
A city in Virginia has awarded a hero’s proclamation to a 12-year-old boy who rescued his grandmother and two younger siblings from a fire that burned their house down recently.
The courage that Ramir Parker demonstrated when confronted with the blaze “is a shining example of resilience, responsibility and the power of instinctive leadership in our youth”, said the proclamation that officials in Petersburg gave to the local seventh-grade student.
Continue reading...Amir-Saeid Iravani says Tehran is ready for negotiations but Trump’s ‘unconditional surrender is not negotiation’
Amir-Saeid Iravani, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, said on Sunday that the Islamic republic’s nuclear enrichment “will never stop” because it is permitted for “peaceful energy” purposes under the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
“The enrichment is our right, an inalienable right, and we want to implement this right,” Iravani told CBS News, adding that Iran was ready for negotiations but “unconditional surrender is not negotiation. It is dictating the policy toward us.”
Continue reading...Cause unknown after several homes faced extensive fallout, including collapses, firefighters say
One person died and two others were injured after an explosion damaged several homes on Philadelphia’s north side early on Sunday, according to authorities.
Firefighters responded to a report of an explosion just before 5am, according to the Philadelphia fire department.
Continue reading...Mark Warner says school would face slashes to jobs and financial aid if its president did not resign over DEI practices
The University of Virginia (UVA) received “explicit” notification from the Trump administration that the school would endure cuts to university jobs, research funding and student aid as well as visas if the institution’s president, Jim Ryan, did not resign, according to a US senator.
During an interview Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation, Mark Warner, a Democratic senator for Virginia, defended Ryan – who had championed diversity policies that the president opposes – and predicted that Donald Trump will similarly target other universities.
Continue reading...President dismisses leaked assessment suggesting strikes only temporarily disrupted Iran’s nuclear development
Donald Trump said he is weighing forcing journalists who published leaked details from a US intelligence report assessing the impact of the recent American military strikes on Iran to reveal their sources – and the president also claimed his administration may prosecute those reporters and sources if they don’t comply.
In an interview Sunday with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, Trump doubled down on his claim that the 21 June airstrikes aimed at certain Iranian facilities successfully crippled Iran’s nuclear program. He insisted the attacks destroyed key enriched uranium stockpiles, despite Iranian assertions that the material had been relocated before the strikes.
Continue reading...Rafael Grossi says some of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile could have been moved before US attacks
The UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi says Iran likely will be able to begin to produce enriched uranium “in a matter of months”, despite damage to several nuclear facilities from US and Israeli attacks, CBS News said on Saturday.
Israel launched a bombing campaign on Iranian nuclear and military sites on 13 June, saying it was aimed at keeping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon – an ambition the Islamic republic has consistently denied.
Continue reading...Felipe Orduna-Torres and Armando Gonzales-Garcia abandoned locked truckload of people in summer heat with no AC in 2022
Two men face spending the rest of their lives in prison after a federal judge sentenced them on Friday for their roles in the deaths of 53 people – including six children – who were found dead in an abandoned tractor-trailer in Texas in 2022.
A federal jury in Texas had found the two men, Felipe Orduna-Torres and Armando Gonzales-Garcia, guilty of various charges at the conclusion of a trial in March. Federal judge Orlando Garcia sentenced Torres to life in prison and Ortega to 83 years of incarceration, essentially a life sentence.
Continue reading...Governor Tim Walz eulogizes Melissa Hortman, killed with husband, as ‘most consequential speaker’ in state’s history
Democratic former Minnesota state house speaker Melissa Hortman was honored for her legislative accomplishments and her humanity during a funeral on Saturday that was attended by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
The former president and vice-president were joined by more than 1,000 other mourners.
Continue reading...Woman’s injuries were not life-threatening, and officials were unable to find the likely young sand tiger shark
A 20-year-old woman was likely bitten by a juvenile shark while waist-deep in the surf at a suburban New York beach, according to state officials.
The unidentified woman suffered minor lacerations to her left leg and foot after being bitten Wednesday at Jones Beach state park on Long Island. She was treated for injuries that were not life-threatening, according to a release from state parks officials.
Continue reading...Meta CEO reportedly to offer pay packages worth up to $100m, a gambit OpenAI’s Sam Altman calls ‘crazy’
Mark Zuckerberg reportedly spent months putting together a list of the top AI engineers and researchers across the globe, preparing to offer potential recruits lucrative compensation packages in Meta’s attempt to poach AI talent from key competitors.
Silicon Valley has been talking for weeks about the Meta CEO’s quest to attract top AI talent, including by offering pay packages worth up to $100m.
Continue reading...Prosecutors allege more than a million Medicare recipients had their information stolen and used by the defendants for fraudulent claims
US federal prosecutors charged 11 people on Friday in a Russia-based scheme to bilk Medicare – the American health insurance program for the elderly and disabled – out of $10.6bn through fraudulent billing for expensive medical equipment.
The “transnational criminal organization” orchestrated a “multi-billion-dollar health care fraud and money laundering scheme” that included purchasing dozens of medical equipment companies from prior legitimate owners to perpetrate the fraud, according to the indictment dated 18 June.
Continue reading...Suit filed in Los Angeles court accuses mogul, son and two other men of ‘brutal gang-rape’ in 2017
As closing arguments got under way in the federal sex-trafficking and racketeering conspiracy trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs this week, the music mogul and his son Justin Combs were hit with a new lawsuit, accusing them of a “brutal gang-rape” in 2017.
In the suit filed in a Los Angeles court on Monday, a woman alleges that Justin Combs used his father’s celebrity status to “lure [the] plaintiff, a young female, from Louisiana to Los Angeles where she was literally held prisoner for a weekend and repeatedly raped” by the pair and two other masked men, according to the complaint.
Continue reading...Legislation will more than double current tax incentives under larger bill slated to be signed by Gavin Newsom
Hollywood’s home state of California will more than double annual tax incentives for film and television production to $750m under a measure passed by the Democratic-led legislature on Friday.
The increase from the current $330m was approved as part of a broader tax bill that is expected to be signed into law by California’s governor, Gavin Newsom.
Continue reading...Hacker working for cartel run by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán was also able to access phone records of an FBI legal attaché at the US embassy in Mexico City
A hacker working for the Sinaloa drug cartel was able to obtain an FBI official’s phone records and use Mexico City’s surveillance cameras to help track and kill the agency’s informants in 2018, according to a new US justice department report.
The incident was disclosed in a justice department inspector general’s audit of the FBI’s efforts to mitigate the effects of “ubiquitous technical surveillance”, a term used to describe the global proliferation of cameras and the thriving trade in vast stores of communications, travel, and location data.
Continue reading...Hugo Carvajal faces narco-terrorism and weapon charges amid accusations he helped lead a drug-trafficking group
A former top Venezuelan military intelligence chief has pleaded guilty in a Manhattan federal court to narco-terrorism conspiracy, drug-trafficking and weapons charges, piling further US pressure on the government of Nicolás Maduro.
Hugo Armando Carvajal Barrios, AKA “El Pollo” or “The Chicken”, was the director of Venezuela’s military intelligence under presidents Hugo Chávez and Maduro. On Wednesday, days before his trial was set to begin, he pleaded guilty to four federal counts, related to accusations that he helped lead a drug-trafficking group within the Venezuelan government.
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