List of All Articles with Tag 'd'

By Stephanie van den Berg THE HAGUE Ukraine and Russia face off at the top United Nations court

A federal judge has yanked the U.S. government's approval for a phosphate mining project in southeastern Idaho

On Saturday, Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado posted a video on Twitter in which she claimed that she had intentionally skipped Wednesday's key House vote on a bill to suspend the nation's debt ceiling.

Two charter planes have arrived in Sacramento, the state capital, over the last several days.

Donald Trump has accused his GOP presidential primary rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, of "blatantly" stealing a line from one of his speeches, despite the fact that the line dates back to former President Ronald Reagan. During Mr DeSantis's glitchy presidential bid announcement on Twitter, he invoked the phrase "Great American Comeback," which Mr Trump furiously claimed in a campaign statement that the governor stole from him. "I'm Ron DeSantis, and I'm running to lead the Great American Comeback," the Florida governor said. The phrase also served as the title of his official campaign video. Mr Trump's team took the opportunity to lash out at the former president's top rival in the Republican primary. “Amid a catastrophic failure to launch, Ron DeSantis announced his candidacy with ‘Great American Comeback,’ a phrase stolen from President Donald J. Trump’s 2020 State of the Union address,” the campaign statement said. “Perhaps, the DeSantis communications staff was pre-occupied attempting to extinguish the flames of their candidate’s announcement to come up with their own message.” The campaign statement included a side-by-side comparison between Mr Trump's 2020 State of the Union address and Mr DeSantis's launch video, according to Talking Points Memo. “Three years ago we launched the great American comeback. Tonight I stand before you to share the incredible results,” Mr Trump says in the clip. While the phrases are certainly identical, Mr Trump wasn't actually the first one to utter the words. The first widely known use of the phrase was by another former president — Ronald Reagan — during his 1986 State of the Union speech. Mr Reagan's speech — which had been delayed by the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster — included him boasting about the nation's economic growth and falling interest rates, which he chalked up to his policies. ”Family and community remain the moral core of our society, guardians of our values and hopes for the future,” Mr Reagan said. ”Family and community are the co-stars of this great American comeback.” Talking Points Memo found that the phrase became relatively common following the address, and was used when describing everything from tennis matches to rebounding reptile populations. Even within the realm of politics the phrase is not unique; House Speak Kevin McCarthy has used it numerous times, as has conservative pundit Monica Crowley. Mr DeSantis was also recently needled for clumsily invoking the spirit of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill while complaining about "woke" ideology. "I recognize that the woke mind virus represents a war on the truth, so we will wage a war on the woke. We will fight the woke in education, we will fight the woke in the corporations, we will fight the woke in the halls of Congress," Mr DeSantis said in a speech on Saturday. The syntax of the speech is similar to the famous speech Churchill made in 1940 to the UK's House of Commons to lift British spirits following the evacuation of Dunkirk during World War II. "We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender," Churchill said. Critics, including former Barack Obama under secretary Richard Stengel, pointed out that Churchill was discussing battling against Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, while Mr DeSantis is railing against pronouns and trans bathroom usage. "Churchill was fighting Nazism, an enemy bent on world domination, while DeSantis is fighting, well, empathy and compassion," Mr Stengel said. "Not the same." The Independent has reached out to both Mr Trump and Mr DeSantis for comment. Read More David Furnish hits out at Ron DeSantis for ‘diabolically anti-Christian’ policies against LGBTQ+ people Showtime pulls Vice episode probing Ron Desantis’s Guantanamo record despite campaign trail questions DeSantis defines ‘woke’ after Trump claimed ‘half the people can’t’ Ivanka and Jared split over attending Trump 2024 launch – follow live Why was Donald Trump impeached twice during his first term? Four big lies Trump told during his 2024 presidential announcement

Mississippi’s capital collects only a little more than half of the money it bills for water use, far below the rate at which most American cities obtain such fees

By Brendan Pierson Texas and an anonymous anti-abortion activist made a joint court filing over the weekend, urging

Robert Hanssen had received more than $1.4m in cash, diamonds and money paid into Russian accounts.

An Oklahoma school board has approved the creation of a publicly funded online Catholic school, teeing up a constitutional legal battle over whether taxpayers should foot the bill for religious schools. The nation’s first-ever religious charter school was approved by the Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board on 5 June, authorising the St Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School to be run by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa – and supported by taxpayer dollars. Republican Governor Kevin Stitt, who has presided over a sweeping agenda against abortion access and transgender healthcare in the state, called the vote “a win for religious liberty and education freedom in our great state.” “Oklahomans support religious liberty for all and support an increasingly innovative educational system that expands choice,” he said in a statement. “Today, with the nation watching, our state showed that we will not stand for religious discrimination.” Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which led opposition in a recent US Supreme Court case involving whether a high school football coach can effectively force his student athletes to pray with him on the field, is preparing to take legal action in Oklahoma. “It’s hard to think of a clearer violation of the religious freedom of Oklahoma taxpayers and public-school families than the state establishing the nation’s first religious public charter school,” president and CEO Rachel Laser said in a statement. “This is a sea change for American democracy,” she added. The group and other civil rights organisations are expected “to take all possible legal action to fight this decision and defend the separation of church and state that’s promised in both the Oklahoma and US Constitutions,” Ms Laser said. Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond also warned the board a vote to support a publicly funded religious school would clearly violate the state’s Constitution and expose the state to costly litigation. “The approval of any publicly funded religious school is contrary to Oklahoma law and not in the best interest of taxpayers,” he said in a statement. “It’s extremely disappointing that board members violated their oath in order to fund religious schools with our tax dollars. In doing so, these members have exposed themselves and the state to potential legal action that could be costly.” The move from the Republican-appointed board on 5 June comes as GOP officials and right-wing institutions across the country push for taxpayer dollars to support religious schools, with a Supreme Court signalling a willingness to direct public funds towards such schools despite explicit First Amendment protections. “State and federal law are clear: Charter schools are public schools that must be secular and open to all students,” Ms Laser added. “ In a country built on the principle of separation of church and state, public schools must never be allowed to become Sunday schools.” This is a developing story Read More Tennessee drag ban is struck down by federal judge: ‘Unconstitutionally vague and substantially overbroad’ Bible banned from Utah school district for ‘vulgarity and violence’ in revenge for conservative attacks on literature Oklahoma’s Supreme Court struck down two abortion bans. But a 113-year-old law is severely restricting access

Senegal experts have called on the government to instill calm after days of the country’s deadliest violence in years and concerns it could have lasting consequences

A photographer survived a 2002 train crash in India and took the first pictures of the tragedy.

After the duke admitted using drugs, the US government is being sued to reveal his visa application.