Page 164 - United States

US strikes deal to boost aviation safety, to not raise pilot retirement age

The bill also requires airplanes to be equipped with 25-hour cockpit recording devices and directs the FAA to deploy advanced airport surface technology to help prevent collisions

Tornadoes kill 4 in Oklahoma; governor issues state of emergency

Tornadoes that tore through Oklahoma have flattened buildings across one rural town, killing at least four people, causing widespread power outages and leaving a trail of destruction, Gov. Kevin Stitt said Sunday. Nearly 30,000 people remained without power after tornadoes began late Saturday night. The damage was extensive in Sulphur, a town of about 5,000 people, where some downtown buildings were reduced to rubble and roofs were sheared off houses across a 15-block radius. You just can't believe the destruction, Stitt said. It seems like every business downtown has been destroyed. Stitt said about 30 people were injured in Sulphur alone. Dozens of reported tornadoes have wreaked havoc in the nation's midsection since Friday, with flood watches and warnings in effect Sunday for Oklahoma and other states including Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas and Texas. In Oklahoma, a tornado ripped through Holdenville, a town of about 5,000 people, late Saturday, killing two people, and injuring f

Biden and Netanyahu speak on Rafah invasion and cease fire talks

The White House on Sunday said US President Joe Biden had again spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as pressure builds on Israel and Hamas to reach a deal that would free some Israeli hostages and bring a cease-fire in the nearly seven-month-long war in Gaza. The White House said that Biden reiterated his clear position as Israel plans to invade Gaza's southernmost city of Rafah despite global concern for more than 1 million Palestinians sheltering there. The US opposes the invasion on humanitarian grounds, straining relations between the allies. Israel is among the countries U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit as he returns to the Middle East on Monday. Biden also stressed that progress in delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza be sustained and enhanced, according to the statement. The call lasted just under an hour, and they agreed the onus remains on Hamas to accept the latest offer in negotiations, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition

Putin probably didn't order opposition leader Navalny's death: US official

US intelligence officials have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely didn't order the death of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny in February, according to an official familiar with the determination. While US officials believe Putin was ultimately responsible for the death of Navalny, who endured brutal conditions during his confinement, the intelligence community has found no smoking gun that Putin was aware of the timing of Navalny's death which came soon before the Russian president's reelection or directly ordered it, according to the official. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter. Soon after the Navalny's death, US President Joe Biden said Putin was ultimately responsible but did not accuse the Russian president of directly ordering it. At the time, Biden said the US did not know exactly what had happened to Navalny but that there is no doubt that his death was the consequence of something that Putin and

Israel agrees to listen to US' concerns ahead of Rafah invasion

"Well, look, I think, again, we have to have a better understanding from the Israelis about what they want to do.

Nearly 200 arrested in US amid crackdown on college protests, says report

Earlier in the day, at Northeastern in Boston, protesters had set up an encampment on the campus's Centennial Common this week that drew more than 100 supporters

US envoy Blinken to visit Mideast again. What can he achieve this time?

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is returning to the Middle East on his seventh diplomatic mission to the region since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza began more than six months ago, the State Department said Saturday. Blinken is traveling to Saudi Arabia on Monday, just two days since arriving back in Washington after a trip to China. Blinken will attend a World Economic Forum conference and meet with Arab foreign ministers in Riyadh, the Saudi capital. An Israeli foreign ministry official says Blinken will visit Israel on Tuesday, a stop not mentioned in the State Department's announcement about Blinken's itinerary. His latest Mideast trip, on the heels of meetings in China with President Xi Jinping and other high-ranking officials, comes as the war grinds on, with more than 34,000 Palestinians killed, hundreds of thousands displaced and a steadily worsening humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. In the surprise attack by Hamas against Israel on Oct. 7 that triggered the war, about 1,200

Deadly car crash in US kills 3 women; victims reportedly from India

Three women, reportedly from India, were killed in a deadly crash in the US state of South Carolina when their overspeeding car veered out of control before jumping at least 20 feet in the air and crashing into trees, media reports said. The accident occurred on Friday at noon on the Staunton Bridge Road along Interstate 85 near Lakeside Road, according to the South Carolina Highway Patrol troopers, Fox Carolina reported. The women, who were reportedly Indians, were travelling in the SUV speeding in the northbound lanes of Interstate 85, Chief Deputy Coroner Mike Ellis from the Greenville County Coroner's Office said. He said the vehicle left the roadway on the right-hand shoulder, ran up the embankment, went through the cement bridge embankment, and jumped completely over all four lanes of traffic. It then went through some trees on the other side of the roadway and down an embankment, Ellis added. When the vehicle jumped all four lanes of traffic, it actually struck trees probab

'I can't breathe': Death of Ohio man echoes George Floyd's killing

Frank Tyson's death, reminiscent of the chilling ordeal of George Floyd, once again thrusts the United States' law enforcement system into the spotlight

US FDA gathering information on Indian spices after alleged contamination

MDH and Everest spices, which are among the most popular names in India and are also sold in Europe, Asia and North America, are also under the Indian regulator's scanner

US probes if Tesla Autopilot recall did enough to make drivers attentive

The US government's auto safety agency is investigating whether last year's recall of Tesla's Autopilot driving system did enough to make sure drivers pay attention to the road. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says in documents posted on its website Friday that Tesla has reported additional crashes involving Autopilot since the recall, raising concerns at the agency about the effectiveness of the remedy. The recall involved more than 2 million vehicles, nearly all the vehicles that Tesla had sold at the time. The agency pushed the company to do the recall after a two-year investigation into Autopilot's driver monitoring system, which measures torque on the steering wheel from a driver's hands. The fix involves an online software update to increase warnings to drivers. But the agency said in documents that it has found evidence of crashes after the fix, and that Tesla added updates that weren't part of the recall. This investigation will consider why these update

Reviewing new info on Israeli unit accused of abuses before Gaza war: US

The US has determined that an Israeli military unit committed gross human-rights abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank before the war in Gaza began six months ago, but it will hold off on any decision about aid to the battalion while it reviews new information provided by Israel, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson. The undated letter, obtained by The Associated Press on Friday, defers a decision by the US whether to impose a first-ever block on US aid to an Israeli military unit over its treatment of Palestinians. Israeli leaders, anticipating the US decision this week, have angrily protested any such aid restrictions. Blinken stressed that US military support for Israel's defence against Hamas and other threats would not be affected by the State Department's final decision on the one unit. Johnson muscled through legislation providing USD 26 billion in additional funds for Israel's defense and for relief of the growing humanitaria

TikTok faces ban in US: Which countries have banned the app and why?

National security, data privacy and 'protecting youth from being misled' are among reasons cited

TikTok could soon be sold: What's next for Chinese app in the US?

US President Joe Biden signed into law a landmark bill that gives TikTok a tough choice: sell or be banned

Trump's lawyers will grill ex-tabloid publisher as first week of trial ends

After prosecutors' lead witness painted a tawdry portrait of catch and kill tabloid schemes, defense lawyers in Donald Trump's hush money trial are poised Friday to dig into an account of the former publisher of the National Enquirer and his efforts to protect Trump from negative stories during the 2016 election. David Pecker will return to the witness stand for the fourth day as defense attorneys try to poke holes in the testimony of the former National Enquirer publisher, who has described helping bury embarrassing stories Trump feared could hurt his campaign. It will cap a consequential week in the criminal cases the former president is facing as he vies to reclaim the White House in November. At the same time jurors listened to testimony in Manhattan, the Supreme Court on Thursday signaled it was likely to reject Trump's sweeping claims that he is immune from prosecution in his 2020 election interference case in Washington. But the conservative-majority high court seemed incline

Ex-tabloid publisher says he scooped up damaging tales to shield Trump

As Donald Trump was running for president in 2016, his old friend at the National Enquirer was scooping up potentially damaging stories about the candidate and paying out tens of thousands of dollars to keep them from the public eye. But when it came to the seamy claims by porn performer Stormy Daniels, David Pecker, the tabloid's longtime publisher, said he put his foot down. "I am not paying for this story," he told jurors on Thursday at Trump's hush money trial, recounting his version of a conversation with Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen about the catch-and-kill scheme that prosecutors alleged amounted to interference in the race. Pecker was already USD 180,000 in the hole on other Trump-related stories by the time Daniels came along, at which point, he said, "I did not want to be involved in this." Pecker's testimony was a critical building block for the prosecution's theory that their partnership was a way to illegally influence the 2016 presidential election. The Manhatta

USTR retains India in IP watchlist, says patents of particular concern

Six other countries such as China, Russia, Indonesia, Chile, Argentina, Venezuela continue to remain in the list

Judge rejects Trump's bid for new trial in $83.3 mn E. Jean Carroll case

A federal judge in New York rejected Donald Trump's request for a new trial on Thursday after a jury awarded USD 83.3 million in damages to a longtime magazine columnist who sued the former president for defamation for calling her claim that he had sexually assaulted her in a Manhattan department store a lie. The judge rejected the former president's claims that the compensatory and punitive damages awarded to writer E. Jean Carroll in January were excessive. The January verdict came after Carroll, 80, an author and former advice columnist for Elle magazine, testified that Trump's public statements about her had led to death threats. Judge Lewis Kaplan said in his ruling on Thursday that the jury was entitled to find that the degree of reprehensibility of Trump's attacks against Carroll on social media was high. Far from being purely defensive,' there was evidence that Mr. Trump used the office of the presidency the loudest 'bully pulpit' in America and possibly the world to issu

US, 17 other countries urge Hamas to release hostages, end Gaza crisis

The 18 countries all have citizens held by Hamas six months after the Palestinian militant group launched its Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel and killed 1,200 people

US DOJ plans to decide by late May if Boeing violated prosecution deal

Federal prosecutors had agreed to ask a judge to dismiss a criminal charge against Boeing so long as it complied with the deal's terms over a three-year period