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Democratic senators are vowing to oppose a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security following the shooting death of a 37-year-old Minnesota man, a stand that increases the prospect of a partial government shutdown by the end of the week. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, in a social media post Saturday night, hours after the shooting, said that what is happening in Minnesota is "appalling" and that Democrats "will not provide the votes to proceed to the appropriations bill if the DHS funding bill is included". Six of the 12 annual spending bills for the current budget year have been signed into law by President Donald Trump. Six more are awaiting action in the Senate. If senators fail to act by midnight Friday, funding for agencies covered under those six bills will lapse. Republicans will need some Democratic support to pass the remaining spending bills in time to avoid a partial shutdown. That support was already in question after Renee Good, a mother of three, w
Federal officers have shot another person in Minneapolis amid the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, Gov Tim Walz said Saturday. Walz, a Democrat, said in a social media post that he had been in contact with the White House after the shooting. He called on the President Donald Trump to end the crackdown in his state. The details surrounding the shooting weren't immediately clear. On Friday, thousands of demonstrators protesting the crackdown on immigrants crowded the city's streets in frigid weather, calling for federal law enforcement to leave. Protesters have gathered daily in the Twin Cities since Jan. 7, when 37-year-old mother of three Renee Good was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer. Federal law enforcement officers have repeatedly squared off with community members and activists who track their movements.
More than 10,000 flights across the US set to take off over the weekend were cancelled as a monster storm started to wreak havoc Saturday across much of the country and threatened to knock out power for days and snarl major roadways with dangerous ice. Roughly 140 million people, or more than 40 per cent of the US population, were under a winter storm warning from New Mexico to New England. The National Weather Service forecast warns of widespread heavy snow and a band of catastrophic ice stretching from east Texas to North Carolina. All Saturday flights were cancelled at Will Rogers International Airport in Oklahoma City, and all Sunday morning flights also were called off, as officials aimed to restart service Sunday afternoon at Oklahoma's biggest airport. The airport was nearly deserted Saturday morning, with only a few TSA agents and a couple of travellers remaining inside the departures side. The Texas Department of Transportation on Saturday posted images of snow-covered ...
A gas explosion sent fire racing through the top floors of a high-rise apartment building in New York City early Saturday, killing one person and injuring 14 others as temperatures plunged into the single digits overnight, authorities said. Firefighters responded shortly before 12:30 am to the 17-story building in the Bronx, where people were seen leaning out of windows calling for help as flames engulfed parts of the top floors, officials said. Chief of Department John Esposito said firefighters were investigating reports of a gas odour on the 15th and 16th floors when the explosion occurred. He said there was major structural damage to about a dozen apartments and fires in 10 apartments on the 16th and 17th floors. Authorities did not immediately release information on the person who died. Another person was critically injured, five had serious injuries and eight had minor injuries, officials said. Officials said the building had been undergoing renovations, and work on the natur
American officials met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday, urging Israel to move into the second phase of the ceasefire that stopped the war in Gaza. Netanyahu met with President Donald Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and Middle East adviser, according to the Prime Minister's Office. The US is anxious to keep the Trump-brokered deal moving, but Netanyahu is facing pressure from within Israel not to progress to the second phase until Hamas returns the body of the last hostage it is holding in Gaza. The Rafah border crossing is both a symbolic and logistical step that is the biggest signal of the commencement of second phase, and many outside Israel are eager to see it open. Ali Shaath, the head of a new, future technocratic government in Gaza that is expected to run the day-to-day affairs, announced on Thursday that the Rafah border crossing will open in both directions this coming week. There was no confirmation from Israel, which
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that two days of trilateral talks with Russia and the United States in Abu Dhabi concluded with "constructive" discussions on "possible parameters for ending the war." The talks are the first known instance that officials from the Trump administration have sat down with both countries as part of Washington's push for progress to end Moscow's nearly 4-year-old invasion. "All parties agreed to report to their capitals on each aspect of the negotiations and to coordinate further steps with their leaders," Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram. He said that military representatives identified issues for a possible next meeting, which could take place as soon as next week. The Ukrainian leader said there was "an understanding of the need for American monitoring and control of the process of ending the war and ensuring real security." US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner participated alongside Ukrainian officials, including chief negotiato
President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened to impose a 100 per cent tariff on goods imported from Canada if America's northern neighbour went ahead with its trade deal with China. Trump said in a social media post that if Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney "thinks he is going to make Canada a "Drop Off Port" for China to send goods and products into the United States, he is sorely mistaken." While Trump has waged a trade war over the past year, Canada this month negotiated a deal to lower tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles in return for lower import taxes on Canadian farm products. Trump initially had said that agreement was what Carney "should be doing and it's a good thing for him to sign a trade deal.
The US military said Friday that it has carried out a deadly strike on a vessel accused of trafficking drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, the first known attack since the raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro earlier this month. US Southern Command said on social media that the boat was "engaged in narco-trafficking operations" and that the strike killed two people and left one survivor. It said it notified the Coast Guard to launch search and rescue operations for that person. A video accompanying the post announcing the latest strike shows a boat moving through the water before exploding in flames. The US military has focused lately on seizing sanctioned oil tankers with connections to Venezuela since the Trump administration launched an audacious raid to capture Maduro and bring him to New York to face drug trafficking charges. With the latest military action, there have been 36 known strikes against alleged drug smuggling boats in South American waters since ..
A woman who was shot and wounded by a Border Patrol agent during a recent immigration stop in Portland, Oregon, pleaded guilty Thursday to illegally entering the U.S. and was sentenced to one year of probation. Yorlenys Zambrano-Contreras appeared by video from an immigration detention facility in Tacoma, Washington, for the federal court hearing in Portland, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported. She won't face time in prison but will have location monitoring and certain nighttime curfew requirements during probation. She will be able to remain out of custody in Oregon under the negotiated resolution of the case, the news outlet reported. The case was initially filed in Texas, where she was accused of illegally entering the U.S., but she waived her right to appear there for prosecution, the outlet reported. The shooting on Jan. 8, one day after a federal agent shot and killed a driver in Minneapolis, prompted protests over agents' aggressive tactics during immigration enforcement ...
The administration of US President Donald Trump has cancelled solar projects in Puerto Rico worth millions of dollars, as the island struggles with chronic power outages and a crumbling electric grid. The projects were aimed at helping 30,000 low-income families in rural areas across the US territory as part of a now-fading transition toward renewable energy. In an email obtained by The Associated Press, the US Energy Department said that a push under Puerto Rico's former governor for a 100 per cent renewable future threated the reliability of its energy system. "The Puerto Rico grid cannot afford to run on more distributed solar power," the message states. "The rapid, widespread deployment of rooftop solar has created fluctuations in Puerto Rico's grid, leading to unacceptable instability and fragility." Javier Rua Jovet, public policy director for Puerto Rico's Solar and Energy Storage Association, disputed that statement in a phone interview Thursday. He said that some 200,000
US President Donald Trump on Thursday said he had a good meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and his message to Russian President Vladimir Putin is that "war has to end". Replying to media queries before leaving Davos, Trump said a US delegation will be meeting Putin today or tomorrow. "I met President Zelenskyy here; the meeting was good. We (US delegation) are meeting President Putin today or tomorrow," he said. Asked what would be his message to Putin, Trump said, "The war has to end. A lot of people have been killed".
The number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits inched up last week but US layoffs remain historically low despite signs of a softening labour market. US filings for jobless aid for the week ending Jan 17 rose by 1,000 to 200,000, up from 199,000 the previous week, the Labour Department reported Thursday. That's fewer than the 207,000 new applications that analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet were expecting. Applications for unemployment benefits are viewed as a proxy for layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the job market. The four-week average of jobless claims, which softens some of the week-to-week volatility, fell by 3,750 to 201,500. The total number of Americans filing for jobless benefits for the previous week ending Jan 10 declined by 26,000 to 1.85 million, the government said.
Powered by strong consumer spending, the US economy grew at the fastest pace in two years from July through September, the government said Thursday in a slight upgrade of its first estimate. America's gross domestic product - the nation's output of goods and services - rose at a 4.4 per cent annual pace in the third quarter, the Commerce Department reported Thursday, up from 3.8 per cent in the April-June quarter and from the 4.3 per cent growth the department initially estimated. The economy hasn't grown faster since third-quarter 2023. Consumer spending, which accounts for 70 per cent of US GDP, grew at a healthy 3.5 per cent pace. A surge in exports and a drop in imports also contributed to robust third-quarter growth. The economy has remained resilient despite uncertainty caused by President Donald Trump's policies, particularly his double-digit taxes on imports from almost every country on Earth. Despite the strong growth numbers, many Americans are dissatisfied with the state