Page 101 - United States

Zakir Hussain passes away in US, tributes pour in for tabla maestro

Tabla maestro Zakir Hussain died in a hospital in San Francisco, US, his family said on Monday. He was 73. Hussain died from complications arising out of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, the family said in a statement. He had been in hospital for the past two weeks and was shifted to the intensive care unit (ICU) after his condition deteriorated. Hussain's sister Khurshid Aulia said he passed away "very peacefully". "He passed away very peacefully after the ventilation machine was switched off. This was 4 pm San Francisco time," she told PTI. Regarded as the greatest tabla player of his generation, Hussain is survived by his wife Antonia Minnecola and their daughters -- Anisa Qureshi and Isabella Qureshi. Born on March 9, 1951, he was the son of legendary tabla master Ustad Alla Rakha. The family said in its statement, "He leaves behind an extraordinary legacy cherished by countless music lovers around the globe, with an influence that will resonate for generations to come." In a

US lawmakers demand to scrap China science agreement renewal deal for 5 yrs

Extension comes despite repeated requests from Congress to either suspend the agreement or implement stronger safeguards to protect US national security, human rights, and intellectual property

Trump appoints Richard Grenell to serve as special missions' envoy

President-elect Donald Trump announced Saturday that he's picked longtime foreign policy adviser Richard Grenell to serve as an envoy for special missions, tasking him with helping the incoming administration deal with some of the toughest foreign policy challenges. Grenell served as ambassador to Germany during Trump's first administration, special presidential envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations, and did a stint as acting director of national intelligence. He was also a contender to serve as secretary of state, but Trump opted to nominate Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. Ric will work in some of the hottest spots around the World, including Venezuela and North Korea, Trump said in a posting on his social media platform, Truth Social, announcing the appointment. Grenell during Trump's first term developed a reputation for employing a sometimes contentious approach to diplomacy that rankled allies and the foreign policy establishment in Washington. But his style was appreciated

US reaffirms ironclad commitment to South Korea amid political turmoil

Miller also conveyed the United States' readiness to collaborate with acting President Han Duck-soo and the Korean government, affirming the shared interests and values that underpin the partnership

Top diplomats from US, Arab League, Turkey discuss Syria's power transition

Top diplomats from the United States, the Arab League and Turkey met in Jordan on Saturday to discuss how to assist Syria 's transition after the fall of Bashar Assad's government a week ago. No Syrian representatives attended. The collapse of the Assad family's more than half-century of rule has sparked new fears of instability in a region already shaken by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and hostilities between Israel and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah despite a tenuous ceasefire. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said American officials have been in direct contact with the Syrian insurgent group that led the overthrow of Assad's government, but the group continues to be designated a foreign terrorist organization by the United States and others. The insurgent leader in an interview with Syrian TV didn't mention contact with the US, but he warned Israel about the hundreds of airstrikes it has carried out in Syria in the past week. The US is also making a renewed push for a ceasefire

Time has come for US Congress to act on Bangladesh: Congressman Thanedar

Raising the issue of attacks over minority Hindus in Bangladesh, Indian-American Congressman Shri Thanedar has said that the time has come for the US Congress to act. "The crowds of the majority have destroyed Hindu temples, Hindu deities and Hindus who are practising their religion in peace," Thanedar said on the floor of the US House of Representatives on Wednesday. "The time has now come for the United States Congress to act and the US government to act ... every possible tool in our hands needs to be used to ensure that such atrocities in Bangladesh against Hindus stop right away," he said. Thanedar has consistently raised the issue of alleged violence against Hindus in Bangladesh since the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government. "Since 1971, when Bangladesh got its freedom from Pakistan, there have been numerous occasions where minority Hindus have been attacked. More recently, we have seen a Hindu priest being arrested and his lawyer was murdered," he alleged. On Thursday, the

Time fact-checks Trump, a first for Person of the Year designee in history

Time magazine gave Donald Trump something it has never done for a Person of the Year designee: a lengthy fact-check of claims he made in an accompanying interview. The fact-check accompanies a transcript of what the president-elect told the newsmagazine's journalists. Described as a 12 minute read, it calls into question 15 separate statements that Trump made. It was the second time Trump earned the Time accolade; he also won in 2016, the first year he was elected president. Time editors said it wasn't a particularly hard choice over other finalists Kamala Harris, Elon Musk, Benjamin Netanyahu and Kate Middleton. Time said Friday that no other Person of the Year has been fact-checked in the near-century that the magazine has annually written about the figure that has had the greatest impact on the news. But it has done the same for past interviews with the likes of Joe Biden, Netanyahu and Trump. Such corrections have been a sticking point for Trump and his team in the past, most .

US Court denies TikTok's plea to halt potential ban until SC review

A federal appeals court has left in place a mid-January deadline in a federal law requiring TikTok to be sold or face a ban in the United States, rejecting a request made by the company to halt enforcement until the Supreme Court reviews its challenge of the statute. Attorneys for TikTok and its China-based parent company, ByteDance, are expected to appeal to the Supreme Court. It is unclear if the nation's highest court will take up the case, though some legal experts have said they expect the justices to weigh in due to the types of novel questions it raises about social media, national security and the First Amendment. TikTok is also looking for a potential lifeline from President-elect Donald Trump, who promised to save the short-form video platform during the presidential campaign. Attorneys for TikTok and ByteDance had requested the injunction after a panel of three judges on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sided with the US government and rejecte

Will use best efforts to eliminate daylight saving time in US, says Trump

President-elect Donald Trump has said his Republican Party will "use its best efforts" to eliminate daylight saving time in the US as it is inconvenient and costly to the nation. In the United States, daylight saving time starts on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November. The time changes take place at 2:00 am local time. In a post on his social media site Truth Social on Friday, Trump said, "The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn't! Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation." The Republican Party will gain control over the two Chambers of the US Congress -- the House of Representatives and the Senate in January. Trump will be sworn in as the 47th President of the US on January 20. Senator Marco Rubio, whom Trump has nominated as his secretary of state, has been a strong advocate of abolishing daylight savings. He had introduced a

Nancy Pelosi hospitalised after getting injured during Luxembourg visit

Pelosi was travelling with a bipartisan Congressional delegation to mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge

BJP's attack on the American 'deep state' reflects growing global discourse

The idea had been acquiring currency across ideological lines for some time and has been given greater legitimacy by Trump

US lawmakers tell Apple, Google to remove TikTok from app stores on Jan 19

Apple, Alphabet and TikTok did not immediately comment. On Monday, ByteDance and TikTok made an emergency bid to temporarily block the law pending a review by the US Supreme Court

US Secy of State Blinken to visit West Asia amid fresh trouble in region

The State Department said Blinken would meet Jordanian officials, including King Abdullah II, in the port city of Aqaba on Thursday before flying to Ankara for meetings with Turkish officials Friday

Curious case of Travis Timmerman: American citizen found in Syrian prison

How the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria led to the discovery of a missing US citizen 29-year-old Travis Timmerman

Cantor Fitzgerald pays $6.75 mn to settle 'misleading' SPAC disclosures

According to the SEC, in 2020 and 2021 a team of Cantor Fitzgerald executives managed and controlled two SPACs that raised $750 million from investors through IPOs ahead of the SPACs' eventual mergers

White House releases first-ever national strategy to combat Islamophobia

The White House has announced what it called the first-ever national strategy to counter Islamophobia, detailing more than 100 steps federal officials can take to curb hate, violence, bias and discrimination against Muslims and Arab Americans. The proposal follows a similar national plan to battle antisemitism that President Joe Biden unveiled in May 2023, as fears about increasing hatred and discrimination were rising among US Jews. Officials worked on the anti-Islamophobia plan for months, and its release came on Thursday, five weeks before Biden leaves office meaning implementation will mostly fall to President-elect Donald Trump, if his administration chooses to do so. In a statement announcing the strategy, the Biden administration wrote that Over the past year, this initiative has become even more important as threats against American Muslim and Arab communities have spiked. It said that included the October 2023 slaying of six-year-old Wadee Alfayoumi, an American Muslim boy

Israeli strike in Gaza kills 25 people as US makes new push for ceasefire

An Israeli airstrike has hit the central Gaza Strip, killing at least 25 Palestinians and wounding dozens more, Palestinian medics said, just hours after President Joe Biden's national security adviser raised hopes about a ceasefire deal to end the war in Gaza. Officials at two hospitals in the Gaza Strip, al-Awda Hospital in the north and al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza, reported they received a combined total of 25 bodies from an Israeli strike on a multi-storey residential building in the urban Nuseirat refugee camp on Thursday. Palestinian medics also reported that over 40 people, most of them children, were receiving treatment at the two hospitals. The al-Aqsa Hospital said that the Israeli attack also damaged several nearby houses in Nuseirat. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the deadly strike. Israel is trying to eliminate Hamas, which led the attack on southern Israel in October 2023 that sparked the war in Gaza. The Israeli military says Hamas ..

President Biden watching situation in Bangladesh very closely: White House

President Joe Biden is closely monitoring the situation in Bangladesh and the United States will hold the Bangladeshi interim government accountable for ensuring the protection of religious and ethnic minorities in the country, the White House has said. "The security situation in Bangladesh has been difficult following the ouster of the former prime minister. And we have been working closely with the interim government to enhance the capability of their law enforcement and security services to deal with the challenge," White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby said at a news conference on Thursday. "We have been very clear in our engagement with all Bangladeshi leaders that protection of religious and ethnic minorities security to all Bangladeshis regardless of religion or ethnicity. We want to hold them to that," Kirby said in response to a question. Over the past few weeks, Indian Americans have held peaceful protests and marches in several cities, including

Biden govt makes final diplomatic push for stability across Middle East

Top US officials were in the Middle East on Thursday, pushing for stability in Syria and an end to Israel's 14-month war in the Gaza Strip in a last-ditch diplomatic push by the outgoing Biden administration before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in a few weeks. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Jordan and Turkey for talks on how to ensure a peaceful transition of power in Syria following the ouster of longtime President Bashar Assad, while White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan was in Israel in a bid to wrap up a ceasefire with Hamas militants. A ceasefire would give President Joe Biden a final diplomatic victory after a turbulent term in which his administration has been unable to halt a brutal war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives in Gaza and plunged the territory into a humanitarian crisis. Trump has demanded the immediate release of hostages, threatening on social media that otherwise there would be HELL TO PAY, and has urged the US not t

Oil little changed as IEA surplus forecast offsets rate cut optimism

Global oil demand rose at a slower-than-expected rate this month, but has remained resilient, analysts at JPMorgan said in a note on Thursday