Page 46 - United States

India Inc's fundraising from overseas sinks to 76-qtr low in Q2: Data

Fund raise drops by 93.3% year-on-year to $210 mn in the quarter

US: Alex Jones ordered to pay nearly $1 bn over Sandy Hook hoax claims

A jury in the US state of Connecticut has ordered conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to pay $965 million in damages to the family members of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting

Saudi Arabia says US sought 1 month delay of OPEC+ production cuts

Saudi Arabia said Thursday that the U.S. had urged the kingdom to postpone a decision by OPEC and its allies including Russia to cut oil production by a month. Such a delay could have helped reduce the risk of a spike in gas prices ahead of the U.S. midterm elections next month. A statement issued by the Saudi Foreign Ministry didn't specifically mention the Nov. 8 elections in which U.S. President Joe Biden is trying to maintain his narrow Democratic majority in Congress. However, it stated that the U.S. suggested the cuts be delayed by a month. In the end, OPEC announced the cuts at its Oct. 5 meeting in Vienna. Holding off on cuts would have meant implementing them just before the Nov. 8 election at a time when they likely couldn't drastically influence prices at the pump. Rising oil prices and by extension higher gasoline prices have been a key driver of inflation in the U.S. and around the world, worsening global economic woes as Russia's months-long war on Ukraine also

Aluminium heads for more supply chaos as Joe Biden weighs Russia ban

The Biden administration is considering options including sanctions on Russia's top producer of aluminium as the White House looks to punish Moscow for its military escalations in Ukraine

Saudi Arabia says US sought a month delay of OPEC+ oil cut decision

Saudi Arabia said on Thursday that the US had urged the kingdom to postpone a decision by OPEC and its allies including Russia to cut oil production by a month which would have been just before the upcoming American midterm elections. A statement issued by the Saudi Foreign Ministry didn't specifically mention the elections, crucial to US President Joe Biden maintaining his Democratic Party's narrow majorities in Congress. However, it stated that the US suggested the cuts be delayed by a month as opposed to being implemented at OPEC's October 5 meeting in Vienna. A month delay would have put them just before the November 8 elections where they likely couldn't have drastically influenced prices at the pump. Rising oil prices and by extension higher gasoline prices have been a key driver of inflation in the US and around the world, worsening global economic woes as Russia's monthslong war on Ukraine also has disrupted global food supplies. For Biden, gasoline prices creeping up

Jan 6 riots committee promises 'surprising' details before election

The House Jan 6 committee is set to unveil surprising details including evidence from Donald Trump's Secret Service about the 2021 attack on the US Capitol in what is likely to be its last public hearing before the November midterm elections. The hearing Thursday afternoon, the 10th public session by the panel, is expected delve into Trump's state of mind" and the central role the defeated president played in the multipart effort to overturn the election, according to a committee aide who discussed the plans on condition of anonymity. The committee is starting to sum up its findings: Trump, after losing the 2020 presidential election, launched an unprecedented attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden's victory. The result was the deadly mob siege of the Capitol. The mob was led by some extremist groups they plotted in advance what they were going to do, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., a committee member, told CNN. And those individuals were known to people in the Trump ...

US FDA authorises updated Moderna, Pfizer Covid boosters for children

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorised the updated Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 booster shots for children as young as five

US government to nearly double temporary visas for non-agricultural jobs

Twenty thousand of the H-2B visas will be granted to workers from the Central American countries of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala as well as Haiti

India looking forward to expanding cooperation: Sitharaman tells Bhutan FM

Nirmala Sitharaman met her Bhutan counterpart Lyonpo Namgay Tshering in Washington and expressed India's wish to expand bilateral cooperation between the two countries including hydropower, Covid

Trump calls US' legal system 'broken disgrace' after deposition order

Former President Donald Trump angrily lashed out on Wednesday, calling the nation's legal system a broken disgrace" after a judge ruled he must answer questions under oath next week in a defamation lawsuit lodged by a writer who says he raped her in the mid-1990s. He also called the 2019 lawsuit by E. Jean Carroll, a longtime advice columnist for Elle magazine, a hoax and a lie". The outburst late in the day came hours after US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan in Manhattan rejected a request by his lawyers to delay a deposition scheduled for October 19. Kaplan is presiding over the case in which Carroll said Trump raped her in the dressing room of a Manhattan Bergdorf Goodman store in the mid-1990s. He called the lawsuit a complete con job". I don't know this woman, have no idea who she is, other than it seems she got a picture of me many years ago, with her husband, shaking my hand on a reception line at a celebrity charity event," Trump said. She completely made up a story that I

US conspiracy theorist faces $1 bn in damages for school shooting case

A US court has asked Infowars founder and "conspiracy theorist" Alex Jones to pay families of Sandy Hook shooting victims and a first responder nearly $1 billion, media reports said

Yellen says US economy 'resilient' amid global headwinds; pledges vigilance

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen sought on Wednesday to project confidence in the US financial outlook while pledging vigilance in responding to risks on the horizon. She is offering that message as global finance leaders gather in Washington to discuss the increasingly dismal view of the global economy. Our economy remains resilient in the face of global economic headwinds, Yellen said at a meeting on the sidelines of this week's annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and its sister lending agency, the World Bank. Her remarks to the Bretton Woods Committee's International Council crediting President Joe Biden's domestic policies for contributing to US economic strength came as administration officials try to talk up the president's policies ahead of midterm elections. Those elections will decide the balance of power in Congress and statehouses across the nation. Democrats with no margin for error are fighting to retain control of the House and Senate. Russia's ...

Indiana Supreme Court puts state Republican-backed abortion ban on hold

The Indiana Supreme Court issued an order on Wednesday that prevents the state from enforcing a Republican-backed abortion ban while it considers whether the ban violates the state constitution. The court said in the order that it was taking over appeals of a judge's decision last month that blocked the law a week after it took effect. It denied a request from the state attorney general's office to set aside the preliminary injunction and scheduled a hearing on the lawsuit filed by abortion clinic operators for January 12. Owen County Judge Kelsey Hanlon blocked the law from being enforced, writing that there is reasonable likelihood that this significant restriction of personal autonomy offends the liberty guarantees of the Indiana Constitution and that the clinics will prevail in the lawsuit. The ban was approved by the state's Republican-dominated Legislature on August 5 and signed by GOP Gov. Eric Holcomb. That made Indiana the first state to enact tighter abortion restriction

West pledges to bolster Ukraine air defence; nuke plant loses power

Unbowed Western powers pledged to supply Ukraine with more potent air defence systems following a furious barrage of retaliatory Russian missile strikes, including one that temporarily knocked Europe's biggest nuclear plant off the invaded country's electrical grid on Wednesday. The Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant suffered a blackout when a missile damaged a distant electrical substation, Ukraine's state nuclear operator said. The power loss increased the risk of a radiation emergency because the plant needs electricity to prevent its reactors from overheating. Energoatom said the external power source was repaired after about eight hours and that the plant's emergency diesel generators which rely on uncertain fuel deliveries in the war zone provided backup in the meantime, but a similarly hazardous interruption could happen at any time. Russia has seized the plant and is not taking any steps to deescalate. On the contrary, it is shelling important infrastructur

Revitalised Quad, India will support free, open Indo-Pacific: US

The Biden administration has released a key policy document that calls for increased cooperation of the US with democracies and like-minded states, including India, to combat shared challenges

US in 'decisive decade' in competition with China: NSA Jake Sullivan

The US has entered a "decisive decade" as it confronts its competition with China while facing challenges from climate change to energy to food security, international terrorism and disease, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Wednesday as the Biden administration unveiled its national security strategy. The Biden administration on Wednesday released its national-security strategy that serves as a reference point for officials to coordinate policies across the government. Speaking ahead of the document's official release, Sullivan said the fundamental premise of the strategy is that the US has entered a decisive decade with respect to two fundamental strategic challenges. "The first is the competition between the major powers to shape the future of the international order. And the second is that while this competition is underway, we need to deal with a set of transnational challenges that are affecting people everywhere, including here in the United States -- from clima

China focused on Indo-Pacific, Putin's war reduced Russia's status: US

The Biden administration released a key policy document on Wednesday, underlining the threat posed to the US by both China and Russia

Joe Biden's global strategy tackles China, Russia, domestic needs

The White House laid out a national security strategy Wednesday aimed at checking an ascendant China and a more assertive Russia even as it stressed that domestic investments are key to helping the US compete in the critical decade ahead. The administration's first national security strategy, a document required by statute, stresses the need for a foreign policy that balances the interests of global allies with those of middle-class Americans. We understand that if the United States is to succeed abroad, we must invest in our innovation and industrial strength, and build our resilience, at home, the strategy states. Likewise, to advance shared prosperity domestically and to uphold the rights of all Americans, we must proactively shape the international order in line with our interests and values. In broad brushstrokes, the strategy sketches a decisive moment for national security, as President Joe Biden faces an arguably more complicated world than when he took office 21 months ago

US mulls Ukrainian-type parole for Venezuelan migrants, says officials

The Biden administration is developing plans for Venezuelans with financial sponsors to be granted parole to enter the United States, similar to how Ukrainians have been admitted after Russia's invasion, U.S. officials said Tuesday. Four officials offered broad outlines of the plan to deal with a large increase in Venezuelans arriving at the U.S. border with Mexico. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the matter publicly. Venezuelans who cross the border illegally on land would be immediately returned to Mexico, two officials said. Currently, Mexico only accepts migrants expelled under Title 42 authority a pandemic-era rule that denies migrants rights to seek asylum and is designed to prevent the spread of COVID-19 if they are from Guatemala, El Salvador or Honduras, in addition to Mexico. Venezuelans who qualify for parole would enter the U.S. at airports, two officials said, mirroring a program introduced in April that allows Ukrainia

US weighs next moves on arms supply to Ukraine in 'escalatory cycle'

Ukraine will push for still more advanced weaponry when the US convenes a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels today to marshal new support for hardware and supplies