List of All Articles with Tag 'rica'

Former President Donald Trump has made plenty of bold claims about his achievements in the game of golf over the years — and he offered another one on Thursday when he claimed he’s made seven holes-in-one during his life. It’s a remarkable number. Rory McIlroy has apparently made just two holes-in-one in his professional golf career, one on the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship in 2015 and one on Thursday at the Travelers Championship in Cromwell, Connecticut. When it comes to world leaders, however, Mr Trump does not yet have the field beat. According to official accounts, Kim Jong-il, the former leader of North Korea, shot 11 holes-in-one in a single round during his first ever golf game at the Pyongyang Golf Course in 1994. Still, seven holes-in-one is no small accomplishment — and it’s not the first time Mr Trump has claimed it. Last year, Mr Trump also told Piers Morgan that he’d shot seven holes-in-one. That interview came just weeks after Mr Trump posed with a group including former PGA Tour professional Ernie Els after supposedly shooting a hole-in-one at a course in Commerce, Georgia. The dates of Mr Trump’s other supposed holes-in-one are less clear, but there is no question that the former president is an avid golfer. He owns courses in multiple countries and plays frequently, a habit that he continued even while serving his four years as president. But Mr Trump has also long been dogged by allegations that he cheats at golf. The former Sports Illustrated writer Rick Reilly in 2019 published a book titled Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump that delves into the former president’s relationship with the game. “Trump doesn’t just cheat at golf,” Reilly writes. “He throws it, boots it, and moves it. He lies about his lies. He fudges and foozles and fluffs. At Winged Foot, where Trump is a member, the caddies got so used to seeing him kick his ball back onto the fairway they came up with a nickname for him: ‘Pele.’” Reilly also claims that Mr Trump’s boast that he has won 18 club championships in his life — made a decade ago to Mark Cuban — is a lie. Reilly has said that whenever the former president has opened a new golf club he plays the first club championship by himself and declares himself the winner. “Donald’s Trump’s boast about winning 18 club championships is a lie that’s so over-the-top Crazytown it loses all credibility among golfers the second it’s out of his mouth,” Reilly wrote. Mr Trump has bigger issues to deal with than his golf record. He’s running for president again, this time under federal indictment for mishandling classified documents. Read More Trump news – live: Trump pleads for help from Congress as DoJ shares first classified documents evidence Trump, DeSantis interviews show Fox influence on GOP field still strong despite troubled year 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

The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday against the Navajo Nation in a dispute concerning the tribe’s access to the drought-stricken Colorado River. Critics says the decision harms a community where an estimated one-third of tribal members lack running water and furthers the history of the US government breaking its promises to tribes. The case, Arizona v Navajo Nation, centres on the obligations of an 1868 treaty, which established the Navajo reservation as the tribe’s permanent home, following their forced removal from their ancestral lands by the United States military. The tribe argued that under the treaty, the US government has an obligation to evaluate the tribe’s need for water and factor that analysis into how it divides up water access to the Colorado River, which serves over 40 million people and passes through seven states. The US government, as well as the states of Arizona, Nevada, and Colorado, and various water districts in California, argued against the tribe in consolidated appeals. They claimed that the tribe’s interpretation of the treaty would undermine existing agreements on sharing the water from the Colorado and create and impose unsubstantiated obligations on the US government to develop water infrastructure for the tribe. In a 5-to-4 decision, all but one of the high court’s conservatives ruled against the tribe. “In light of the treaty’s text and history, we conclude that the treaty does not require the United States to take those affirmative steps,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the majority opinion. “And it is not the Judiciary’s role to rewrite and update this 155-year-old treaty. Rather, Congress and the President may enact — and often have enacted — laws to assist the citizens of the western United States, including the Navajos, with their water needs.” The court’s three liberal justices, as well as the Trump-appointed Neil Gorsuch, an advocate for tribal rights, dissented. “The Navajo have waited patiently for someone, anyone, to help them, only to be told (repeatedly) that they have been standing in the wrong line and must try another,” he wrote in his dissenting opinion. He argued, alongside the tribe, that the Navajo weren’t forcing the US government to immediately start building water infrastructure or changing water claims on the river, but rather begin the process of fully accounting for what the nation needed. Navajo representatives criticised the ruling. "My job as the president of the Navajo Nation is to represent and protect the Navajo people, our land, and our future,” Navajo Nation president Buu Nygren said in a statement after the ruling. “The only way to do that is with secure, quantified water rights to the Lower Basin of the Colorado River.” With a population of about 175,000 and a land mass larger than West Virginia, the Navajo Nation is the largest US tribal reservation, and the Colorado River and its tributaries flow alongside and through the tribe’s territory. “The US government excluded Navajo tribal citizens from receiving a share of water when the original apportioning occurred and today’s Supreme Court decision for Arizona v. Navajo Nation condoned this lack of accountability,” John Echohawk, executive director of the Native American Rights Fund, one of the many Indigenous groups that filed briefs in support of the Navajo Nation, said in a statement. “Despite today’s ruling, Tribal Nations will continue to assert their water rights and NARF remains committed to that fight.” In 2003, the Navajos sued the federal government regarding access to the Colorado River, while the tribe has also fought for access to a tributary, the Little Colorado River, in state court. As The Independent has reported, many on the Navajo nation struggle for basic water access. “If you run out [of water] in the evening, you have to get up earlier the next day to make sure that there’s water for the kids to wash hands, brush their teeth, make breakfast,” Tina Becenti told The Independent. “It was time-consuming and took a lot of energy.” Tribes were cut out of initial deals made to allocate the water on the Colorado River, leaving many to rely on thousands of unregulated wells, springs, and livestock troughs that are spread across the reservation, which can pose a serious health risk. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, these sources may contain bacterial or fecal contaminants, along with unsafe levels of uranium and arsenic – a legacy of mining on Navajo land which began with the US military’s Manhattan Project for nuclear weapons in 1944 and continued until 2005. The fate of the Colorado River has become increasingly contentious, as the vital waterway dwindles under heavy demand and a changing climate. In May, following years of tense negotiations, Arizona, California, and Nevada agreed to cut their use of water from the Colorado in exchange for $1.2bn in federal funding, a last-minute compromise that staved off catastrophic impacts to agriculture, electricity generation, and water supplies to major cities like Phoenix and Los Angeles. The high court decision follows a ruling this month on another topic with a long and complicated history involving tribal groups: adoption. Last week, a 7-2 majority ruled to preserve the Indian Child Welfare Act, defending the law’s preference for the foster care and adoption of Native children by their relatives and Tribes, which was implemented following investigations that revealed more than one-third of Native children were being removed from their homes and placed with non-Native families and institutions, cutting off important family and cultural ties. Louise Boyle and Alex Woodward contributed reporting to this story. Read More Father of 13 dies in Colorado rafting accident after saving his children from danger Feds announce start of public process to reshape key rules on Colorado River water use by 2027 Nevada fight over leaky irrigation canal and groundwater more complicated than appears on surface Supreme Court rules against Navajo Nation in Colorado River water rights case Feds announce start of public process to reshape key rules on Colorado River water use by 2027 Vegas water agency empowered to limit home water flows in future

The Supreme Court met behind closed doors on Thursday to decide if it will take up a case concerning whether the Americans with Disabilities Act covers individuals with gender dysphoria.

The Buffalo Zoo in New York welcomed four new lion cubs into their African lion pride in early June.

A Texas man has been arrested for allegedly mutilating a living dog and her puppies. Justin Belton, 44, has been charged with four counts of cruelty to non-livestock animals and is currently being held at the Harris County Jail. According to court filings, authorities were first alerted to the alleged crimes after Mr Belton arrived at a local animal shelter on Saturday with six puppies that had been abused. Four of the puppies had their limbs cut off with what appeared to be a tool. One of the puppies’ injuries were so severe that it had to be put down, while its litter mates “were left crying in pain,” the filings obtained by ABC state. Mr Belton was arrested at the animal hospital and when investigators searched his home, they found the puppies’ mother already dead. Other dogs found at the residence were also in unsanitary and confined conditions. The alleged animal killer first told authorities that it was a neighbour who hurt the puppies and then changed his account, saying he put the dogs in a cage and they hurt themselves. Investigators noted in court documents that the injuries did not appear to be inflicted by other animals. Neighbours told law enforcement that they heard barking noises in the early morning hours of Saturday, and later heard Mr Belton “yelling and swearing.” “Very horrific, super disturbing, not just for our staff, but also for the police officers that arrived,” Dr Gabriela Vega, a veterinarian who was working at Sunset 24/7 Animal Hospital when the puppies were brought in, told ABC13. Four puppies are expected to survive, she told the network. “Some of them may only have three legs, but that’s never stopped a dog before, so I expect them to have a pretty good life moving forward,” Dr Vega said. Mr Belton has a previous criminal history. A harassment case against him was dismissed in 2016, and separate stalking charges were adjudicated four years before. The suspect is being held on $100,000 bond. According to ABC, his arraignment hearing was postponed earlier this week because the court could not find a public defender willing to take his case. Read More Known to child welfare, a violent father and a child missing for two years: What happened to Harmony Montgomery? Schoolboy, 10, stuns council meeting with stirring speech on racism he has suffered A decade after outcry, SeaWorld launches orca-free park in UAE, its first venture outside the US

The group Republican Accountability has released a new advertisement slamming former president Donald Trump’s excuse that he was too “busy” to return boxes of classified documents to the US government. Mr Trump has claimed, first in a rally at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey last week and then again during a Fox News interview earlier this week, that he failed to return the documents because they were mixed up with his personal belongings and he hadn’t had a chance to go through them yet when the federal government called. The advertisement opens with a narrator asking “Why did Donald Trump refuse to return highly sensitive classified documents?” It then cuts to Mr Trump speaking on Fox News. “I want to go through the boxes and get all my personal things out and I was very busy, as you’ve sort of seen,” Mr Trump says in the Fox News clip. “That’s right,” the narrator says. “He was too busy to comply with a subpoena because he was too busy DJing at Mar-a-Lago.” The advertisement then spends the next 30 or so seconds detailing some of what Mr Trump has been up to since leaving the White House in 2021. “Too busy crashing random people’s weddings,” the narrator says, as images of Mr Trump engaged in various leisure activities appear on the screen. “Too busy going to multiple UFC fights. Too busy selling NFTs. Too busy dancing to the Village People by the pool. Too busy golfing.” Whatever his reasons, Mr Trump is now facing 37 felony counts over his mishandling of the documents and refusal to return them. He is the first president to ever face federal indictment, pleading not guilty to the charges at a courthouse in Miami last Tuesday. Mr Trump is also under indictment in New York over his alleged role in a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels and could face further indictments over his attemps to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election. Nevertheless, the former president continues to lead polls of the 2024 Republican nominating contest by a wide margin. Whether his legal issues affect his standing either in the Republican primary or the general election remains to be seen, but they do appear to be raising the personal stakes of the upcoming presidential election for Mr Trump. “Trump has no respect for the law,” the narrator’s concluding statement begins. “He doesn’t think rules apply to him — especially when he’s so busy.” Read More 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 Trump news – live: Trump pleads for help from Congress as DoJ shares first classified documents evidence Prosecutors have recordings of multiple Trump interviews, documents show

Vice President Kamala Harris has said she knows of young people choosing which college they want to attend based on how restrictive the abortion laws are in that state. Commenting in an interview for the Roe v Wade retrospective on MSNBC’s The ReidOut, Ms Harris said her goddaughter told her that her friends wanted to attend schools in states where there was more freedom in terms of reproductive rights. Ms Harris told the roundtable: “When the decision came down she told me ‘Do you know what’s happening? My friends – whatever gender – are starting to make decisions about where they will actually go to college depending on what’s happening in that state.’” “Because of course, if you look at it, I think the number is something like 23 million women of reproductive age live in states that have banned abortion, and what that is gonna mean for those 23 million, for the myriad of health care issues that are at stake ... It’s having a real impact on all types of decisions people make,” she added. The show took a look back at the decision to overturn the landmark Roe v Wade decision that legalised abortion in the US in 1973 when the Supreme Court ruled that “unduly restrictive state regulation of abortion is unconstitutional”. In 2022, the Supreme Court, packed with three Trump-era appointees, overturned Roe v Wade and returned decisions on abortion freedom to the states. Since then, a number of states have introduced effective abortion bans that limit the procedure to the very early days of pregnancy – often before women are aware they are pregnant. Some states have also criminalised assisting women with accessing abortion, and limited abortion to cases of rape or incest. Ms Harris said that the Supreme Court’s decision last year had infringed on women’s rights. “The idea that the highest court in our land just did that and rolled back rights that had been recognized was incredibly shocking,” she said on MSNBC. She said that after she learned the news of the ruling, she called her husband and shared some “words not meant for television at this moment”. Ms Harris went on to say that the ruling means that some have to “suffer in silence,” the thought of which made her “angry and sad”. Read More Where abortion laws stand in every state a year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe A year after fall of Roe, 25 million women live in states with abortion bans or tighter restrictions Judge to weigh suspending Wyoming's first-in-the-nation ban on abortion pills US prepares for potential end of Roe v Wade - live When will there be a Roe v Wade decision? Why these prosecutors are refusing to enforce anti-abortion laws

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a multilateral development bank, is in talks to guarantee a climate-related bond being

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board has defended the newspaper’s decision to publish a defensive column from US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who dismissed allegations of wrongdoing detailed in an investigative news outlet before it had even published its story. The conservative justice – who authored the court’s landmark opinion overturning Roe v Wade one year ago – failed to disclose private jet travel and a luxury fishing trip with a hedge fund billionaire who would later repeatedly ask the nation’s highest court to intervene on his behalf, according to ProPublica’s findings published on 21 June. ProPublica, which has published several investigative pieces outlining alleged ethical lapses among members of the court, had yet to publish its report before The Wall Street Journal ran his column with the blunt and accusatory headline “ProPublica Misleads Its Readers”. Later that day, the editorial board defended its decision to run his defensive piece. “The political assault on the Supreme Court continues, and the latest Justice in the grinder is Samuel Alito,” the board wrote. “As usual, this is a non-scandal built on partisan spin intended to harm the Justice and the current Court majority.” The Wall Street Journal did not return The Independent’s request for comment or explain how it commissioned Mr Alito’s column and how the newspaper made a decision to publish a response to ProPublica before anyone read its reporting. “Justice Alito clearly wanted his defense to receive public disclosure in full, not edited piecemeal. We saw ProPublica’s list of 18 questions and had a good idea of where the reporters were going. The story proved us right,” the editorial board wrote. “It is also hilarious to be denounced for betraying the media brotherhood for the offense of scooping the competition,” the board added, appearing to dismiss criticism that the newspaper provided a venue for a powerful figure before allegations against him were publicised at length as merely a resentful media story. “This is the same crowd that would prefer if we didn’t exist,” the board added. “Their pearl-clutching reveals the degree of media conformity when it comes to approved progressive political targets like Justice Alito.” The board stated that it is defending the Supreme Court “because someone has to,” alleging that the investigations are not about sincere ethics questions but are instead about “the left’s fury at having lost control of the Court” and instead to “destroy” it. ProPublica’s founding editor-in-chief Paul E Steiger served as the managing editor of the Wall Street Journal from 1991 to 2007. Stephen Engelberg, ProPublica’s current editor-in-chief, told The New York Times that Mr Alito’s column “declared without anyone having read the article and without asking for our comment.” “We’re curious to know whether The Journal fact-checked the essay before publication,” he added. Read More Justice Alito tries to get ahead of damning report about billionaire gifts with defensive Wall Street Journal op-ed Wall Street Journal under fire for Justice Alito op-ed: ‘This has simply broken my brain’ Deb Haaland and Tribal leaders welcome Supreme Court decision upholding Indian Child Welfare Act Supreme Court rules Alabama discriminated against Black voters in major victory for voting rights

A South African state development bank plans to create an almost $1.5 billion water infrastructure fund and is

Federal prosecutors have given former president Donald Trump’s legal team access to much of the unclassified evidence against him, including multiple recordings of Mr Trump made during interviews of him since the end of his presidency. Attorneys working under the supervision of Department of Justice Special Counsel Jack Smith revealed the existence of the recordings in a late Wednesday court filing which detailed what has been turned over to Mr Trump’s lawyers thus far as part of the legally-mandated “discovery” process, in which the government reveals what evidence it intends to use against a criminal defendant at trial. Specifically, the document says the government has turned over copies of “any written or recorded statements” made by Mr Trump or his co-defendant, Walt Nauta. Prosecutors said that category of evidence includes multiple “interviews” of Mr Trump by “non-governmental entities,” such as the 21 July 2021 interview referenced in the indictment of the ex-president. During that interview, Mr Trump spoke to two people who were assisting his ex-chief of staff, Mark Meadows, with the writing of a book about his former administration, and discussed a document which the ex-president claimed to be a war plan for attacking a foreign country. At the time, Mr Trump described the document as “secret information” and noted that he was not able to declassify it because he was no longer president. The batch of documents provided to Mr Trump’s defence team also includes transcripts of testimony given by witnesses to grand juries in Washington, DC and Florida during the government’s investigation into his alleged mishandling of national defence information, as well as other materials obtained by the government by way of subpoenas and search warrants, such as surveillance footage from his Mar-a-Lago property. Prosecutors wrote that the tranche of evidence made available to the ex-president’s attorneys “includes the grand jury testimony of witnesses who will testify for the government at the trial of this case”. Under the terms of a protective order issued last week by Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, Mr Trump is barred from viewing the evidence against him outside the presence of his attorneys. The order states that Mr Trump “shall only have access to Discovery Materials under the direct supervision of Defense Counsel or a member of Defense Counsel’s staff,” and prohibited either of them from retaining copies of the materials themselves or taking any notes with them after viewing any of the materials. The protective order and the restrictions it places upon Mr Trump are meant in part to prevent him from directing his followers to harass any witnesses against him or any FBI or DOJ personnel involved in the case. Magistrate Judge Reinhart also ordered that the discovery materials be kept only by Mr Trump’s legal team and stored securely on premises controlled by them. Read More 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

Former Texas Representative Will Hurd has launched a long-shot bid for the Republican presidential nomination. The ex-CIA officer was strongly critical of then-President Donald Trump while serving in the US House before leaving at the end of his final term in January 2021. The 45-year-old served three terms in the House, becoming the only Black Republican in the chamber in his last two years, the AP noted. Mr Hurd appeared on CBS Mornings on Thursday, pitching himself as a moderate alternative in the growing field of GOP candidates. “We need common sense,” he said. “I believe the Republican Party can be the party of the future, not the past.” More follows... Read More 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