Dr Anthony Fauci has debunked Nicki Minaj’s controversial comments about the Covid-19 vaccine.The United States’ authority on infectious diseases is the latest medical expert to call out “misinformation” found in the hip hop star’s public remarks about the shots.On Monday, Minaj – whose given name is Onika Tanya Maraj – came under fire after announcing she wouldn’t attend the 2021 Met Gala because of its vaccine mandate and, in the same tweet, revealing that she isn’t vaccinated.During her…

SpaceX’s first private flight blasted off Wednesday night with two contest winners, a health care worker and their rich sponsor, the most ambitious leap yet in space tourism.It was the first time a rocket streaked toward orbit with an all-amateur crew - no professional astronauts.The Dragon capsule’s two men and two women are looking to spend three days circling the world from an unusually high orbit - 160km (100 miles) higher than the International Space Station - before splashing down off the…

The state of Utah did not do enough to make sure a remote highway was safe before a tour bus crashed, killing four people from China and injuring two dozen more in 2019, family and survivors said in a lawsuit filed on Tuesday.The lawsuit alleges state transport officials failed to post warning signs, had a road design that left little room for error and included no rumble strip to warn drivers they were getting close to the edge.More than a dozen people were thrown from the bus after the driver…

The US, Britain and Australia have forged a “historic” security alliance to strengthen military capabilities in the Pacific, allowing them to share advanced defence technologies and giving Australian forces nuclear submarine technology. The move, announced on Wednesday, extends Washington’s drive for military cooperation that has angered China.To begin the “Aukus” security partnership, naval officials and technical specialists from the three countries will work together over the next 18 months…

This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Lara Seligman and Daniel Lippman on politico.com on September 15, 2021.Claims in an upcoming book that a frantic Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley made secret calls to his Chinese counterpart are greatly exaggerated, according to two people familiar with the discussions.A forthcoming book by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa claims that Milley grew concerned about then President Donald Trump’s…

Star Olympic gymnast Simone Biles denounced the FBI for turning “a blind eye” to the sexual abuse she and other young athletes suffered at the hands of former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar in emotionally powerful testimony before a Senate panel Wednesday. “It truly feels like the FBI turned a blind eye to us and went out of its way to protect” the USA Gymnastics organisation and the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, said Biles, who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee…

Covid-19 deaths and cases in the United States have climbed back to levels not seen since last winter, erasing months of progress and potentially bolstering President Joe Biden’s argument for his sweeping new vaccination requirements.The cases – driven by the Delta variant combined with resistance among some Americans to getting the vaccine – were concentrated mostly in the South.While one-time hotspots like Florida and Louisiana are improving, infection rates were soaring in Kentucky, Georgia…

California Governor Gavin Newsom on Tuesday became the second governor in US history to defeat a recall aimed at kicking him out of office early, a contest the Democratic governor crafted as part of national battle for his party’s values in the face of the coronavirus pandemic and lingering threats from “Trumpism”.The victory cements Newsom as a prominent figure in national Democratic politics and preserves his prospects for a future US run.It also ensures the nation’s most populous state will…

As soon as his news conference ends, Jagmeet Singh pulls out his phone, gathers the crowd for an Instagram video and leads them in song, jumping and spinning in place while filming.As he campaigns ahead of next week’s snap elections, Singh, the 42-year-old leader of Canada’s leftist New Democratic Party (NDP), is looking to embody a new way of doing politics. And by relying heavily on social media he hopes to woo young voters who once helped propel Prime Minister Justin Trudeau into office.A…

A panel of former US policymakers has urged Washington to join a Pacific Rim trade pact abandoned four years ago, pass legislation that would fund technology innovation and bolster educational exchange with China and other countries as part of a raft of measures needed to prevail in an increasingly confrontational relationship with Beijing.The policymakers, including the former US trade representative Charlene Barshefsky, the former US ambassador to China Winston Lord and Evan Medeiros, a…

US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ruffled lots of feathers with her 2021 Met Gala dress – and not the fashionable kind.After some called the Democrat a hypocrite for condemning wealth inequality at the lavish, star-studded red-carpet event, the New York congresswoman defended her decision on Monday to attend the gala wearing a floor-length white gown with “Tax the Rich” written on the back in bold, red letters.“The medium is the message,” Ocasio-Cortez captioned an Instagram photo of…

The chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday urged Chinese firms to comply with American auditing rules and said the agency supported legislation that would allow for faster delisting.Gary Gensler, testifying before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, said that the agency has “had discussions directly with the Chinese authorities” about the potential speeding up of delisting and that “the clock is ticking”.The bill – the Accelerating Holding Foreign…

Fearful of Donald Trump’s actions in his final weeks as president, the United States’ top military officer twice assured his Chinese counterpart that the two nations would not go to war, according to a forthcoming book.Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley told General Li Zuocheng of the People’s Liberation Army that the United States would not strike. One call took place on October 30, 2020, four days before the election that defeated Trump. The second call was on January 8, 2021,…

Maxime Bernier, a former cabinet minister nicknamed “Mad Max”, is channelling anger against mandatory vaccines into surprising support for his populist People’s Party of Canada (PPC) in the country’s tight election race.His efforts may end up helping the man he calls a “fascist psychopath”: Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.Bernier, 58, who quit the main opposition Conservatives in 2018 after losing a leadership race, was previously most famous for leaving classified documents in a former…

China’s ambassador to Britain Zheng Zeguang was barred from the country’s parliament in Westminster over Chinese sanctions on British lawmakers.Zheng had been expected to speak at the summer reception for the all-party parliamentary group on China on Wednesday at the Terrace Pavilion of the House of Commons.But the event has been cancelled after Speaker of the House of Commons Lindsay Hoyle and Speaker of the House of Lords John McFall agreed Zheng could not enter until the sanctions were…

For the first time in 60 years of human space flight, a rocket is poised to blast into orbit with no professional astronauts on board, only four tourists.SpaceX’s first private flight will be led by a 38-year-old entrepreneur who’s bankrolling the entire trip. He’s taking two sweepstakes winners with him on the three-day, round-the-world trip, along with a health care worker who survived childhood cancer.They’ll ride alone in a fully automated Dragon capsule, the same kind that SpaceX uses to…

US President Joe Biden travelled to California to campaign with Governor Gavin Newsom on the eve of a Republican-backed recall race that Democrats have cast as an attempted power grab by acolytes of former president Donald Trump.Biden made a Monday evening appearance with the embattled first-term governor in the port city of Long Beach near Los Angeles, marking Newsom’s final rally before a special election on Tuesday that will test the power of Trump’s appeal in a deeply Democratic state.The…

The United States and the European Union have agreed to aim to cut emissions of the planet-warming gas methane by around a third by the end of this decade and are pushing other major economies to join them, according to documents seen by Reuters.Their pact comes as Washington and Brussels seek to galvanise other major economies ahead of a world summit to address climate change in Glasgow, Scotland, in November, and could have a significant impact on the energy, agriculture and waste industries…

A cyber surveillance company based in Israel developed a tool to break into Apple iPhones with a never-before-seen technique that has been in use since at least February, internet security watchdog group Citizen Lab said on Monday.The discovery is important because of the critical nature of the vulnerability, which requires no user interaction and affects all versions of Apple’s iOS, OSX, and watchOS, except for those updated on Monday.The tool developed by the Israeli firm, named NSO Group,…

US President Joe Biden will host the leaders of the Quad alliance, which agreed earlier this year to counter China’s military build-up in the Asia-Pacific, at the White House next week as he seeks to deepen the group’s cooperation.The first in-person meeting of the Quad’s leaders – Biden, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga – will take place on September 24, White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced on…