A monolith made of gingerbread appeared on a hill in San Francisco on 25 December.
The large biscuit is the latest in a series of mysterious monoliths that have appeared – and disappeared – in the US and Romania
Continue reading...Category Archives: US News
Trump continues to block pandemic relief package as shutdown looms
The president indicated he may veto the 5,000-page bill that he calls a ‘disgrace’ which would extend benefits to Americans
As unemployment benefits were due to expire for millions of Americans on Saturday, Donald Trump, who spent Christmas playing golf in Florida, continued to block a $900bn pandemic relief bill that would extend them.
The package, which Congress passed with bipartisan support on Monday after months of negotiations, would keep unemployment benefits in place until March and expand state benefits by $300 a week – as well as extending an evictions moratorium, providing federal loans to small businesses and $600 direct payments to many Americans.
Continue reading...Nashville: FBI combs wreckage as mystery surrounds Christmas Day blast
- Three people lightly injured and possible human remains found
- Unclear if or how remains are linked to downtown explosion
Mystery surrounds the motivation behind the detonation of an apparent bomb on the streets of downtown Nashville that rocked Tennessee’s biggest city on Christmas morning as investigators continued to comb the wreckage for clues.
Three people were lightly injured in the blast and some possible human remains have been found near the site of the RV that exploded and caused serious damage to Nashville’s historic core. But it is not clear if or how the remains are linked to the incident.
Continue reading...Large explosion damages buildings in Nashville at Christmas – video
Footage filmed after a vehicle exploded in Nashville early on Christmas morning shows damage to several buildings. The explosion is being considered an 'intentional act' by local police as vehicle broadcast an apparently recorded message telling people to evacuate the area before the blast
Continue reading...LA’s Covid ‘tsunami’: inside the new center of America’s raging pandemic
An exponential surge is crushing Los Angeles hospitals, with desperate nurses warning ‘there’s no place to take care of you’
Los Angeles is becoming the center of America’s out-of-control coronavirus pandemic in these final days before the new year, with officials warning that a meteoric rise in infections is crushing the healthcare system in one of the country’s largest metropolitan regions.
LA county has faced an onslaught of terrifying Covid developments in recent days, including a surge in deaths, dire shortages of hospital resources, and fears that doctors will have to make agonizing choices to ration care.
Continue reading...Critics fear Trump could pressure William Barr’s successor for big favors
Former DoJ officials say they are worried Trump will lean on acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen for potentially risky favors
William Barr’s abrupt move to leave his post as attorney general this week has spurred fears among Department of Justice veterans that Donald Trump will put new pressures on Barr’s successor to do him big and potentially risky political and legal favors.
Former justice department officials say they are worried Trump will lean on Barr’s less experienced successor, the acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, to push policies which Trump has suggested he backs, including naming special counsels to investigate President-elect Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and using the DoJ to investigate Trump’s baseless charges of widespread election fraud.
Continue reading...Blueprint for Biden? How a struggling Irish town gambled on its links to JFK
New Ross reinvented itself as a shrine to the Kennedy clan. Can towns linked to Biden, the most Irish American president since JFK, do the same?
After its factories died and its port withered, New Ross, a town perched by the River Barrow in south-east Ireland, decided in the 1990s to tap a unique asset: John F Kennedy.
The US president’s great-grandfather had sailed from the quays of New Ross to America during the 1840s famine, leaving behind a modest homestead that JFK twice visited, including a few months before his assassination in 1963. Like many Americans, not least the current US president-elect, Joe Biden, Kennedy was proud of his Irish connections and keen to re-emphasise the links.
Continue reading...Boeing 737-8 Max: Air Canada jet shuts down an engine and diverts after mechanical issue
Emergency signal sent from Montreal-bound plane carrying three crew before the plane was rerouted to Arizona
An Air Canada Boeing Co 737-8 Max en route between Arizona and Montreal with three crew members onboard suffered an engine issue that forced the crew to divert the aircraft to Tucson, Arizona, the airline says.
Shortly after the take-off, the pilots received an “engine indication” and “decided to shut down one engine”, an Air Canada spokesman said on Friday.
Continue reading...China to overtake US as world’s biggest economy by 2028, report predicts
Centre for Economics and Business Research says it expects this to happen half a decade sooner than it forecast a year ago
China will overtake the US as the world’s biggest economy before the end of the decade after outperforming its rival during the global Covid-19 pandemic, according to a report.
The Centre for Economics and Business Research said that it nowexpected the value of China’s economy when measured in dollars to exceed that of the US by 2028, half a decade sooner than it expected a year ago.
Continue reading...Blast that rocked downtown Nashville appears to be ‘intentional act’, police say
- Explosion linked to parked RV occurred at 6.45am
- Three suffer non-critical injuries as structural damage reported
A large explosion that rocked downtown Nashville early on Christmas morning appears to have been an “intentional act”, according to local police, as the FBI announced it would lead the investigation into a blast that caused severe damage and left three people with non-critical injuries.
Continue reading...Massachusetts city to post climate change warning stickers at gas stations
Bright yellow stickers warn drivers burning of gasoline has ‘major consequences on human health and the environment’
Cambridge, Massachusetts, has become the first US city to mandate the placing of stickers on fuel pumps to warn drivers of the resulting dangers posed by the climate crisis.
Continue reading...The Republican heroes and villains of Trump’s attempt to steal the election
As Donald Trump peddled baseless claims of vote fraud after 3 November, democracy found out who its friends were
In November, Donald Trump became the first president in American history to try to hold on to power that voters had given to someone else in the course of a national election.
Continue reading...Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch reportedly sells for $22m
Property sold for less than a quarter of its initial $100m asking price to billionaire investor Ron Burkle
Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch has reportedly sold for $22m, less than a quarter of its initial $100m asking price, to billionaire investor Ron Burkle in a deal described one LA real estate agent as a “steal”.
The property in Los Olivos, California, was home to the late popstar from 1987, when he was at the height of his fame, to the time of his death in June 2009. He died of a drug overdose at a different home in the Holmby Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Continue reading...Johnny Depp ‘did not get fair trial’, lawyers tell appeal court
Judge dismissed Depp’s libel claim last month but actor seeks new trial over assault allegations
Johnny Depp “did not receive a fair trial” and the high court ruling that stated he assaulted his ex-wife Amber Heard and put her in fear for her life is “plainly wrong”, lawyers for the Hollywood star have told the court of appeal.
The 57-year-old sued the Sun over a column by its executive editor, Dan Wootton, which referred to “overwhelming evidence” that he had attacked Heard, 34, during their relationship and described him as a “wife beater”.
Continue reading...Florida braced for unusually cold Christmas – and falling iguanas
Reptiles often become immobile in chilly weather and can plummet from trees though they are still alive
With unexpectedly cold weather forecast and pandemic-related curfews in some places, Florida is about to have a Christmas unlike any other – and it may involve falling iguanas.
Related: 'I took a trip to the North Pole': Anthony Fauci tells children he vaccinated Santa
Continue reading...Trump claims to be ‘working tirelessly’ but leaves Covid relief in disarray
- President flies to Florida after throwing party ‘under a bus’
- Democrats seize chance to push for $2,000 payments
- Has Donald Trump finally split the Republican party?
Donald Trump went to his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida on Thursday, after claiming to be “working tirelessly for the American people” with a schedule that included “many meetings and calls”. Back in Washington, a Democratic proposal to increase direct payments to Americans under the Covid relief bill, from $600 to $2,000, was blocked.
Related: Donald Trump's latest wave of pardons includes Paul Manafort and Charles Kushner
Continue reading...Couple behind 2009 ‘balloon boy’ hoax in US granted pardons
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.
Continue reading...Pakistan court orders release of man charged over Daniel Pearl murder
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.
Continue reading...UK bans flights from South Africa as New York to check on all British arrivals
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.
Continue reading...Dr Anthony Fauci turns 80 – and even his birthday surprise obeyed Covid rules
The wife of America’s top public health official, herself a National Institutes of Health bioethicist, had to get creative this year
Anthony Fauci, America’s guiding light through the darkness of Covid-19, turns 80 today, Christmas Eve.
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