List of All Articles with Tag 'us politics'

The Trump campaign used stock footage of a man sitting in a basement, claiming that it was an American unable to afford a home while it was actually filmed in Ukraine 25 miles from the frontline. The dramatic footage shows a man working on his laptop as he shelters from the shelling of the Russian invasion in Zaporizhzhya, Ukraine last year, according to the New York Post. In the ad released on Wednesday, the Trump campaign slammed President Joe Biden for the effect inflation has had on Americans during his time in the White House. To make this argument, instead of using footage of Americans, the Trump campaign used footage from Ukraine, showing the man sitting in a basement as a voiceover claims that young Americans can’t buy homes because of high inflation. Another piece of stock footage used in the video shows a young couple seemingly walking away from a real estate agent. That clip was also filmed in Ukraine, in Lviv, in the western part of the country in 2021 before the war began in February of last year. The Trump campaign ad was entitled Mourning in America and criticised Mr Biden for his handling of the southern US border, the US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, as well as trans issues. As the footage from Ukraine can be seen, the voiceover states: “Under Biden’s unprecedented inflation, the hope of home ownership gone. And young adults, forced to abandon seeking the American dream to live in their parents’ basement longer.” The man behind the footage showing the couple failing to purchase a home told the New York Post that he “can only say bad things about Trump”. The creator said he didn’t want to be identified to avoid affecting his relationship with his stock footage vendor. “But unfortunately, anyone can buy our or another video … I can’t control it,” he told the paper. “I wouldn’t want him to use [the] video in his ad. But rules are rules.” Yevhen Shkolenko owns the company that filmed the footage in the basement in Zaporizhzhya. He told the Post that the man in the footage is an actor but shows what Ukrainians have to deal with as air sirens ring out to warn of an incoming strike by the Russians. “This video was made 100 per cent in Ukraine during war in real sheltered basement in my city Zaporizhzhya, which is 40 km (25 miles) [from the] frontline,” Mr Shkolenko told the paper. “We were one of those who stayed in our city to help people and the army and we continued our work of filming and when we were doing this filming, we went down to the basement many times in order to hide from rocket fire.” The Trump campaign released the attack ad shortly before Donald Trump appeared on CNN for a town hall event that was widely criticised for giving a platform for the former president to spout a litany of lies. During the town hall event in front of a friendly audience, Mr Trump claimed that he would be able to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours after re-entering the Oval Office on 20 January 2025 simply by speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he refused to call a war criminal. Mr Trump also refused to say if he wanted Ukraine to be victorious, instead arguing that he wanted the fighting to cease, adding that calling someone a war criminal might be detrimental to a possible peace process. A former Trump official who worked on his re-election campaign in 2020 told the Post that “as president, Trump bragged about the billions of dollars worth of weapons and aid he sent to Zelensky in Ukraine. Now he’s paying for stock footage from Ukraine to depict the American Dream in his lame campaign ads? What a joke”. The Independent has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment. Read More The danger of America’s ageing politicians The two-word slur that tells us everything we need to know about Donald Trump Trump news – live: Trump defends CNN ratings as E Jean Carroll threatens to sue him again over ‘vile’ remarks The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary

As the stalemate over addressing the debt ceiling continues and the threat of default looms larger, President Joe Biden has resurfaced the controversial idea of using the 14th Amendment as a way to lift the borrowing cap without Congress.

Serbia's populist leader has sharply denounced opposition plans to block a key bridge and motorway in Belgrade on Friday to press their demands in the wake of last week's mass shootings in the Balkan country that left 17 people dead, including many children. President Aleksandar Vucic said that the planned opposition protest later on Friday amounted to “violence in politics” and “harassment” of citizens. But, Vucic said, police would not intervene to prevent it “unless people's lives are in danger.” “What gives them the right to block other people's normal lives?” said Vucic, adding that the opposition were “abusing the tragedy” following the shootings that deeply rattled the nation and triggered calls for change. “They are harassing citizens and not allowing them to travel,” Vucic insisted. “But we don't like to beat protesters, like France and Germany do.” The rally on Friday comes a week after thousands marched in Belgrade. They were demanding the resignations of government ministers and the withdrawal of broadcast licenses for two private TV stations which are close to the state and promote violence. They often host convicted war criminals and crime figures on their programs. Protests with the same demands have been held in the past week in various cities and towns in Serbia. Opposition officials said the bridge blockade in Belgrade on Friday evening would last for two hours. The two shootings happened in just two days, leaving 17 people dead and 21 wounded. A 13-year-old boy last Wednesday used his father's gun to open fire at his school in central Belgrade, while a day later a 20-year-old randomly fired at people in a rural area south of Belgrade. Opposition parties have said that Vucic's populist government has fueled intolerance and hate speech, while taking hold of all institutions, thus stoking divisions. Vucic has denied this. He has called his own rally for May 26 in Belgrade that he said would be the “biggest ever.” “We do not organize spontaneous rallies in order to play with people's emotions,” Vucic insisted. “Ours will be a rally of unity, when we will announce important political decisions.” Vucic also told reporters that citizens had handed in more than 9,000 weapons since police announced a one-month amnesty for people to surrender unregistered guns and ammunition or face possible prison sentences after that period. Serbia is estimated to be among the top countries in Europe when it comes to the number of guns per capita, many of them left over from the wars in the 1990s. Other anti-gun measures after the shootings include a ban on new gun licenses, stricter controls on gun owners and shooting ranges, and tougher punishments for the illegal possession of weapons. Read More Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide

Republicans in Kentucky will decide their nominee for governor on Tuesday in the party's first major primary since last year's midterm elections -- and one with implications for the 2024 GOP presidential race and the battle for Senate control.

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is proposing raising the legal voting age to 25, his campaign announced Thursday.

Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman is expected to depart her post this summer, three sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law Thursday that exempts records related to his travel from the state's robust public disclosure law.

Private equity investor Andrew Intrater is one of the people federal prosecutors allege Rep. George Santos induced to donate money as part of an alleged scheme that diverted purported political contributions to Santos' personal use, Intrater's lawyer confirmed to CNN on Thursday.

Louisiana Republicans have refused to add exceptions for rape and incest to one of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the country after the US Supreme Court revoked a constitutional right to abortion access. The state’s anti-abortion Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards opposed the exclusion, but he signed the state’s anti-abortion law last year despite pleas from abortion rights advocates to veto the measure. This year, state Rep Delisha Boyd introduced a bill that would amend the law to add exceptions for pregnancies from rape or incest, but lawmakers on a state House committee voted down the proposal, effectively killing it for the remainder of the legislative session. On 10 May, the committee struck down the bill after hearing testimony from rape survivors and abortion rights advocates who shared their experience and urged lawmakers to support survivors. Lawmakers voted 10-5 on party lines to keep exemptions from rape or incest out of Louisiana’s anti-abortion law. Lawmakers also heard from anti-abortion activists and John Raymond, a former Survivor contestant and pastor accused of taping students’ mouths shut and hanging another student by his ankles. Mr Raymond, who has pleaded not guilty to the allegations, told the committee that women will “clamor to put old boyfriends behind bars in order to dispense with the inconvenience of giving birth” if the state allows rape survivors to access abortion care. In this year’s legislative session, lawmakers are considering a package of bills aimed at loosening the state’s near-total ban on legal abortion care, but most of the proposals have been shelved. During the committee hearing, Ms Boyd revealed that she was born after her mother was sexually assaulted when she was 15 years old. “My mother never recovered,” she said. “No one looked after my mother. No one looked out for me.” Republican state Rep Tony Bacala said he opposed the legislation by pointing to Ms Boyd, who was born from rape, as a good person. In a statement, the governor said he was “deeply disappointed” by the vote. “The committee’s decision to prevent this important bill from being debated by the full House is both unfortunate and contrary to the position of a vast majority of Louisianans, who support these exceptions,” he added. “I simply do not understand how we as a state can tell any victim that she must be forced by law to carry her rapist’s baby to term, regardless of the impact on her own physical or mental health, the wishes of her parents, or the medical judgment of her physician,” said the anti-abortion Democratic governor, who signed the law that bans nearly all abortions, without exceptions, last year, despite pleas from abortion rights advocates to veto the bill. “As I have said before, rape and incest exceptions protect crime victims,” he added. Roughly 3 million women in the US have experienced rape-related pregnancy during their lifetime, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Louisiana also had one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the nation, disproportionately impacting Black women, according to the state’s Department of Health. Louisiana is among more than a dozen states, mostly in the South, that have effectively outlawed or severely restricted access to abortion care in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision last year to reverse the half-century precedent for abortion access affirmed by Roe v Wade. The state also is central to a closely watched case that could determine the future of a widely used abortion drug used in more than half of all abortions in the US. The legal case over the federal government’s approval of mifepristone will return to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans on 17 May, the next step in one of the biggest abortion rights cases after the fall of Roe. The Supreme Court’s decision on 21 April maintains the US Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the drug after a federal judge in Texas struck it down in a ruling that would have profound and potentially dangerous consequences for millions of Americans if allowed to go into effect. A three-judge panel at the federal appeals court in Louisiana will hear arguments in the case next week. Read More Alabama Republicans would charge abortion patients with murder under proposed legislation A Texas man sued his ex-wife’s friends for allegedly helping her with an abortion. Now they’re suing him McConnell opposes Alabama Republican's blockade of military nominees over Pentagon abortion policy

The warring Sudanese parties have signed an agreement intended to lay the groundwork for humanitarian assistance to resume in Sudan, senior US State Department officials said Thursday.

A federal judge said Wednesday that federal prohibitions on licensed dealers selling handguns to 18-to-20-year-olds are unconstitutional, in what is the last legal volley over age-based firearm regulations -- a court fight that has escalated since the Supreme Court's major Second Amendment ruling last year.

A number of GOP senators pushed back on controversial claims made by Donald Trump at Wednesday night's CNN town hall, telling CNN they disagreed with him on a range of issues in a sign of the divisions within the Republican party over the former president.