Page 74 - Joe Biden

Biden, Netanyahu speak for first time in weeks during war tensions

Their conversation came a day after the Israeli leader rejected calls from the US and Arab nations for the Palestinian Authority to rule Gaza after the war with Hamas

South Carolina representative Nancy Mace backs Trump over Nikki Haley

Donald Trump has picked up another endorsement from Nikki Haley's home state of South Carolina, with Rep. Nancy Mace backing the former president in this year's GOP presidential primary. Mace had stayed out of the 2024 Republican primary as two fellow South Carolinians Haley and Sen. Tim Scott entered the race last year. On Monday, a day ahead of the New Hampshire primary, Mace told The Associated Press that she was backing Trump over Haley, who lives in her congressional district and supported her in 2022 against a Trump-backed challenger. I don't see eye to eye perfectly with any candidate. And until now I've stayed out of it, Mace said. But the time has come to unite behind our nominee. The South Carolina Republican's backing comes as Trump angles to bolster his dominance thus far in Republican balloting, following his record-setting win last week in the Iowa caucuses. Over the weekend, Trump was joined by a slew of South Carolina leaders as he campaigned in New Hampshire, see

US now pursuing 'least bad' option in confronting Houthi militants

The urgency is only increa­s­ing. The Houthi attacks have driven down shipments through a waterway that previously handled 12 per cent of global seaborne trade

Ex US Prez Trump mocks Haley's first name; refers to her by her first name

Former US president Donald Trump has lobbed racially charged attacks at his Indian-American Republican rival Nikki Haley by repeatedly referring to her as Nimbra", in an apparent intentional misspelling of her birth name. Trump's attack against Haley, a daughter of Indian immigrants who served as his UN ambassador, comes days before a hotly contested New Hampshire primary that could determine the trajectory of the party's presidential nomination contest. Haley, 52, whose parents moved to the United States in the 1960s, was born Nimarata Nikki Randhawa. The former South Carolina governor has long used her middle name Nikki and adopted the surname Haley after her marriage in 1996. But Trump, 77, repeatedly referred to Haley as Nimbra in a rant on his Truth Social account, adding her to the list of foes he has targeted with racist attacks. He also insisted she doesn't have what it takes to be president. Reminiscent of his spurious claims about former president Barack Obama's citizen

Donald Trump suggests Nikki Haley out of running for VP pick as insults fly

Haley served as UN ambassador under Trump and the two fell out after she announced that she would run for the Republican nomination

Biden-Netanyahu hold talks after almost a month, discuss two-state solution

The US President also discussed the ongoing efforts to secure the release of all remaining hostages under Hamas captivity and reviewed the situation in Gaza

Biden administration taking heat from all sides over Louisiana LNG project

Bill McKibben, an environmentalist who led a successful fight against the now-cancelled Keystone XL oil pipeline, said any approval of CP2 by the Biden administration 'would be a huge miscalculation.'

Joe Biden hits out at Trump, says former US prez wants stock market crash

"He wants to see the stock market crash" because he does not want to acknowledge the economy is now performing well, Biden said

US evades question suggesting talks with Pak before latter struck Iran

The US on Thursday (local time) evaded a question on whether Pakistan held prior consultations with Washington before conducting retaliatory air strikes on Iran

Biden govt pledges new sanctions over Houthi attacks on global shipping

The United States on Wednesday put Yemen's Houthis rebels back on its list of specially designated global terrorists, piling financial sanctions on top of American military strikes in the Biden administration's latest attempt to stop the militants' attacks on global shipping. Officials said they would design the financial penalties to minimize harm to Yemen's 32 million people, who are among the world's poorest and hungriest after years of war between the Iran-backed Houthis and a Saudi-led coalition. But aid officials expressed concern. The decision would only add "another level of uncertainty and threat for Yemenis still caught in one of the world's largest humanitarian crises, Oxfam America associate director Scott Paul said. The sanctions that come with the formal designation are meant to sever violent extremist groups from their sources of financing. President Donald Trump's administration designated the Houthis as global terrorists and a foreign terrorist organisation in one

Pentagon to install rooftop solar panels as Biden pushes for clean energy

The Defence Department will install solar panels on the Pentagon, part of the Biden administration's plan to promote clean energy and reestablish the federal government as a sustainability leader. The Pentagon is one of 31 government sites that are receiving $104 million in Energy Department grants that are expected to double the amount of carbon-free electricity at federal facilities and create 27 megawatts of clean-energy capacity while leveraging more than $361 million in private investment, the Energy Department said. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks and Brenda Mallory, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, announced the projects Wednesday at the Pentagon. The solar panels are among several improvements set for the Pentagon, which also will install a heat pump system and solar thermal panels to reduce reliance on natural gas and fuel oil combustion systems Brendan Owens, assistant secretary of Defence for energy, .

India an extraordinary success story: US Secretary of State Blinken

Describing India as an "extraordinary success story", US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday said the policies and programmes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi have been very beneficial to the people of India. Speaking here at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2024, he also said US President Joe Biden and Modi enjoy excellent relations and their conversations cover all aspects, including US-India relations. Hailing the expansion of bilateral ties between the two countries, Blinken said the US and India are always in constant conversations and those cover all aspects, including on democracy and fundamental rights. "It's part of very sustained and very real conversation we have always had," he said. He was replying to a question on whether the rise of Hindu nationalism concerns India despite the country's robust economic growth and infrastructure building under the Modi regime.

Donald Trump 2.0?

A second term might increase global risks

Ramaswamy urges DeSantis, Haley to drop out of race in favour of Trump

Indian-American entrepreneur-turned-politician Vivek Ramaswamy has urged two of the three remaining Republican hopefuls to drop out and "do this country and this party a service" by endorsing former President Donald Trump in his bid to reclaim the White House. Following his poor showing in Monday's Iowa caucuses, the 38-year-old multimillionaire had not just backed out but also backed its winner Trump. Trump, who is the current frontrunner, won 51 per cent of the votes cast in Monday's Iowa caucuses. While Florida governor Ron DeSantis came a distant second with 21 per cent, former South Carolina governor Nikky Haley received 19 per cent of the votes. I think Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley would actually, at this point, do this country and this party a service by stepping aside to make sure that we're focused on not only nominating Donald Trump but getting this country back and reviving those founding revolutionary ideals, Ramaswamy said during an interview with Fox News on Tuesday.

It's time for Republican Party to come together as one team: Donald Trump

He, however, also gave a message calling on his GOP rivals to come together and move into the presidential polls as a team

Trump lawyers foreshadow lines of defence in classified documents case

Lawyers for former President Donald Trump foreshadowed elements of their defence in the criminal case charging him with illegally retaining classified documents, saying in a motion filed on Tuesday that they will dispute prosecutors' allegations that the estate where the records were stored was not secure. The defence team also said in a wide-ranging court filing that they are seeking communication between the Justice Department prosecution team and associates of President Joe Biden in hopes of advancing their claims that the classified documents case is politically motivated and designed to harm Trump's reelection campaign. The brief, which asks a judge to compel special counsel Jack Smith's team to turn over a trove of information, offers the most expansive view yet of potential lines of defence in one of the four criminal cases Trump faces as he seeks to capture the Republican nomination and reclaim the White House. It offers a blend of legal analysis and political bombast that h

Biden invites congressional leaders during difficult talks on Ukraine aid

President Joe Biden has invited the top four congressional leaders and other lawmakers to the White House on Wednesday as members have struggled to reach agreement on US aid for the Ukraine war. Republicans have insisted on pairing it with their own demands for securing the US border. A bipartisan group of negotiators in the Senate has been working for weeks to find an agreement that would provide wartime money for Ukraine and Israel and also include new border policy that is strong enough to satisfy Republicans in both chambers. The talks appeared to slow last week as senators said significant disagreements remained. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Tuesday that the lawmakers -- including Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La; House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-NY; Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY; and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky; -- were invited to meet with Biden "to discuss the critical importance of his national ...

Republicans halt plan to hold Hunter Biden in contempt for defying subpoena

House Republicans have halted plans to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress this week for defying a congressional subpoena, citing negotiations with his attorneys that could end the standoff over his testimony. Republicans were set to advance the contempt resolution against Hunter Biden to the House floor in a procedural step on Tuesday, but called it off "to give the attorneys additional time to reach an agreement", according to a spokesperson for the House Oversight Committee. The move comes days after an attorney for President Joe Biden's son indicated a willingness to cooperate with Republicans' ongoing impeachment inquiry following months of defiance. Still, attorney Abbe Lowell wrote to House Republicans on Friday that his client's cooperation is dependent on the committee issuing a new subpoena. They maintained that the two subpoenas sent in November were not legitimate because they were issued before the full House authorised the impeachment inquiry into President Joe .

Biden administration to relist Houthis as specially designated terrorists

The Biden administration is expected to soon announce plans to redesignate Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen as a specially designated global terrorists, according to two people familiar with the White House decision and a US official. The move comes as the Houthis have launched dozens of attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea. The group says it has attacked the ships in response to Israel's military operations in Gaza in the aftermath of Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel. The three people familiar with the decision were not authorised to comment and requested anonymity to discuss the matter ahead of the expected formal announcement. Secretary of State Antony Blinken delisted the Houthis as both a foreign terrorist organisations and as specially designated global terrorists in February 2021 as the administration sought to make it easier to get humanitarian aid into Yemen. In its waning days, the Trump administration designated the Houthis a Foreign Terrorist Organization

US-India ties not based on convenience and calculation, says Eric Garcetti

He said that the foundation of the bilateral ties is built on four Ps -- peace, prosperity, planet and people