YouTuber prankster shot and wounded by target of practical joke

Tanner Cook, 21, was reportedly playing joke on man at Virginia mall when victim of prank shot him in abdomen

A popular US YouTube creator who prides himself on making videos in which he displays odd behavior to put people off intends to keep at it, even after one of his targets allegedly shot him nearly to death.

Tanner Cook – who regularly makes videos of himself pranking strangers for nearly 40,000 subscribers of the channel Classified Goons – was reportedly playing a practical joke on a man at a mall in the Washington suburb of Dulles, Virginia, at about midday on Sunday. A friend was recording him when things took an almost deadly turn, according to authorities as well as an interview Cook gave to the local TV station WUSA.

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Galloping Grant: the day a sitting president of the US was arrested

President Ulysses S Grant’s penchant for speeding in his horse-drawn carriage landed him in trouble with police in 1872

Donald Trump may be preparing to become the first US president to be criminally indicted but should his perp walk for paying hush money to a porn star come to pass – perhaps granting his reported wish to be seen handcuffed – he will not be the first president ever arrested.

In 1872, President Ulysses S Grant was nicked for speeding in his horse-drawn carriage.

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Older Americans protest against ‘dirty banks’ funding oil and gas projects

Protesters cut up credit cards and march to Washington branches of JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Bank of America and Wells Fargo

Hundreds of older Americans gathered in Washington on Tuesday to protest against four of the country’s largest financial institutions, cutting up their credit cards in an act of defiance meant to condemn the banks’ funding of oil and gas projects.

The protesters marched to the downtown DC branches of the four targeted “dirty banks” – JPMorgan Chase, CitiBank, Bank of America and Wells Fargo – before staging a “die-in” to symbolize the global threat posed by fossil fuels. In a nod to the age of the protest’s participants, demonstrators sat in painted rocking chairs as they chanted “Cut it up!” to those slashing their credit cards outside the banks’ branches.

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Prosecutors seek to question Trump lawyer before grand jury in classified papers case

Investigators are looking at invoking an exception that can bypass attorney-client privilege if legal advice is used for furthering crime

Federal prosecutors involved in the criminal investigation of Donald Trump’s retention of classified documents argued to a US judge on Thursday that one of the former US president’s lawyers should answer more questions before a grand jury over objections of attorney-client privilege.

US prosecutors have been seeking to invoke the so-called crime-fraud exception that allows them to compel testimony about communications between an attorney and a client when they have evidence to suggest legal advice was used in furtherance of a crime.

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Lawmaker who gave tours of Capitol will lead inquiry of January 6 panel

Georgia Republican Barry Loudermilk denied giving tours related to the January 6 riots until video was released

Barry Loudermilk, the Republican representative from Georgia who has been accused of giving tours of the Capitol building days before the January 6 insurrection, will lead a new House committee that will investigate the Democratic-controlled January 6 select committee.

On Tuesday, Loudermilk criticized the select committee, saying: “The J6 committee chose to ignore the facts and pursue a particular political narrative. I will not do this.”

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‘Sleaze-slinging’ Fox News denounced by family of January 6 officer who died

Condemnation of ‘so-called new network’ comes after Tucker Carlson shares footage from attack courtesy of Kevin McCarthy

The family of Brian Sicknick, the US Capitol police officer who died the day after the January 6 attack on Congress, condemned Tucker Carlson and Fox News as “unscrupulous and outright sleazy”, after the primetime host made his first use of security footage from the riot bestowed by Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House speaker.

A statement on Tuesday said: “The Sicknick family is outraged at the ongoing attack on our family by the unscrupulous and outright sleazy so-called news network of Fox News.”

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Ex-official in Clinton and Obama White Houses dies in air turbulence incident

Dana Hyde, 55, was flying from Maryland to New England and suffered blunt-force injuries from violent turbulence

A former official in the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama White Houses died last Friday after the private business jet that the prominent Washington attorney was on experienced stability issues and encountered severe turbulence mid-flight.

The National Transportation Safety Board has since started investigating “a reported trim issue that occurred prior to the in-flight upset” that affected the plane’s altitude control and may have caused the instability.

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George Washington University accused of ‘colluding’ with rightwing pro-Israel group

StadWithUs filed charge with US education department accusing Lara Sheehi of hate speech and discrimination against students

An Arab professor and lecturer in diversity has accused George Washington University of “colluding” with a rightwing pro-Israel group over a federal complaint accusing her of antisemitism.

The group, StandWithUs (SWU), filed a complaint with the US education department’s civil rights office claiming that Lara Sheehi, an assistant professor of clinical psychology, discriminated against Jewish students by refusing to accept their definitions of antisemitism.

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George Washington University installs emergency contraception vending machine

Students led effort over concern for reproductive rights after supreme court struck down constitutional right to abortion

A vending machine that provides emergency contraception has been installed at a Washington DC university, as colleges contend with how to protect reproductive rights on campus.

Students at George Washington University successfully obtained the vending machine dispensing morning-after pills following concerns in the wake of the supreme court’s ruling last summer to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision that had ushered in the constitutional right to an abortion.

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‘We’re tired of being beaten’: protesters across US call for justice for Tyre Nichols

After video of the brutal beating was released, people gathered to decry the violence and abuse of power

  • This article contains video depicting physical violence

Protests took place in multiple US cities late Friday after police released footage of Tyre Nichols’ fatal beating at the hands of Memphis police.

The video released late Friday shows several Memphis officers kicking Nichols repeatedly in the head, punching him in the face, and hitting him with a baton.

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Capitol rioter who assaulted Brian Sicknick gets near-seven year sentence

Julian Khater pleaded guilty to using chemical spray to attack the Capitol police officer who died on 7 January

A man who admitted using chemical spray to assault Brian Sicknick on January 6, a day before the Capitol police officer died, was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison in a Washington court on Friday.

Julian Khater, 33, from Pennsylvania, was also fined $10,000.

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Women’s marches take place across country on 50th anniversary of Roe v Wade – live

More than 200 events in 46 states to protest supreme court decision that struck down the federal right to an abortion in US

Passionate signs and pins have been popping up all across the country as thousands of people took to the streets to demonstrate their opposition towards the removal of federal protections of reproductive rights.

Rachel O’Leary Carmona, the executive director of the Women’s March, addressed crowds in Madison, Wisconsin, on Sunday as thousands descended upon the state’s capital to demonstrate for reproductive rights.

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Crocodile dies after chewing on electric wire after being ‘attracted’ to it

The 10-year-old male Cuban crocodile at the Smithsonian zoo in Washington, DC, likely bit on electrical equipment in its enclosure

An endangered crocodile in a Smithsonian zoo in the US died after apparently biting into a live electrical cord in its shelter.

The Cuban crocodile, a 10-year-old male reptile, was discovered on 17 December inside its enclosure by staff at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute (NZCBI)’s Reptile Discovery Center in Washington, DC.

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More than 14,000 in Washington state lose power after energy station attacked

Christmas Day outages add to an alarming string of incidents with similar power grid vandalism in Oregon and North Carolina

More than 14,000 people suffered power outages in Washington state on Christmas Day following burglaries and a series of vandalisms at different power stations.

The Pierce county sheriff said in two statements that no suspects have yet been identified for the incidents.

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More migrants bussed to Kamala Harris’s home on Christmas Eve

Three buses of Central and South American migrants arrived to the vice-president’s home from Texas

Three busloads of migrants were dropped off outside the Washington DC home of US vice-president Kamala Harris late on Christmas Eve, the latest episode in an escalating battle between the Joe Biden White House and the governors of southern Republican states over federal immigration policy.

The Central and South American migrants, believed to be sent from Texas, were dropped off in below-freezing temperatures, with some wearing only sweatshirts and shorts.

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Zelenskiy to meet congressional leaders in Washington on Wednesday – reports

Trip would be Ukrainian president’s first foreign visit since Russia invaded in February

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, will travel to Washington on Wednesday where he is expected to visit the White House and the US Capitol, according several US media reports.

Zelenskiy is expected to meet congressional leadership and national security committee chiefs from the Republican and Democratic parties, and might address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night, news outlets reported..

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‘It’s about ethics’: Nigeria urges British Museum to follow US and repatriate bronzes

Culture minister says UK institution ‘should learn from what has happened’ as Smithsonian returns 29 Benin artefacts

The culture minister of Nigeria has urged the British Museum to follow the example of the Smithsonian Institution, which on Tuesday returned ownership of 29 Benin bronzes to Nigeria at a celebratory event in Washington.

Lai Mohammed praised the move by the US National Museum of African Art, which follows a recent restitution agreement with Germany that included the handover of two Benin bronzes. Last year, Mohammed’s ministry formally requested the return of Benin artefacts from the British Museum in London.

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Ben Sasse, Republican who voted to convict Trump, to depart Congress

Nebraska senator, to take top post at University of Florida, is latest GOP legislator to leave Capitol Hill after voting to impeach in 2021

Another Republican who stood up to Donald Trump is on his way out of Congress, with the news that the Nebraska senator Ben Sasse is set to become president of the University of Florida.

Of the 10 House Republicans and seven senators who voted to convict Trump at his second impeachment trial, for inciting the January 6 Capitol attack, only two congressmen and four senators are on course to return after the midterm elections.

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Texas sends another busload of migrants to Kamala Harris’s home

About 50 mainly Venezuelan migrants including a baby deposited unannounced at Naval Observatory in Washington

About 50 migrants, including a one-month-old baby, have been sent in a bus from Texas to the Washington DC residence of Vice-President Kamala Harris, in the latest move by Republican-led states to transfer migrants unannounced across the country.

The bus let off the migrants, who are believed to be mostly Venezuelan, outside the Naval Observatory, the traditional home of US vice-presidents, on Saturday morning.

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Washington Commanders running back Brian Robinson shot multiple times

  • Player was victim of apparent robbery or carjacking
  • Coaches and staff of NFL team are present at hospital

Washington Commanders rookie running back Brian Robinson was shot during what police say was an attempted robbery or carjacking, the NFL team said on Sunday night.

The 23-year-old former Alabama player was taken to a hospital with what the team called non-life-threatening injuries. The Commanders said team co-owners Dan and Tanya Snyder, president Jason Wright, coach Ron Rivera, team physician Dr Anthony Casolaro and clinical psychologist Dr Barbara Roberts were with Robinson at the hospital.

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