North America

(AP) --- Just how similar is Instagram’s chatty new app, Threads, to Twitter?

In a cease-and-desist letter earlier this week, Twitter threatened legal action against Instagram parent company Meta over the new text-based app Threads, which it called a “copycat.”

Threads has drawn tens of millions of users since launching as the latest rival to Elon Musk’s social media platform.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani could be disbarred in Washington after a review panel on Friday condemned how he pursued the false claims that then-President Donald Trump made about his 2020 presidential election loss.

Giuliani “claimed massive election fraud but had no evidence,” wrote the three-member panel in a report that details the errors and unsupported claims the former mayor made in a Pennsylvania lawsuit seeking to overturn the Republican president’s loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — Campaigning in Iowa, former President Donald Trump attacked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as an enemy of corn-based ethanol in his largest campaign event in the leadoff caucus state in nearly four months.

Trump, appearing Friday in Council Bluffs in the western part of the state, criticized his top 2024 Republican presidential rival for voting as a member of Congress to oppose the federal mandate for the fuel additive that Iowa leads the nation in producing.

WASHINGTON (AP) — At 31 years old, Nasrat Ahmad Yar had spent most of his adult life working with the U.S. military in Afghanistan before escaping to America in search of a better life for his wife and four children.

He found work as a ride-share driver and even managed to send money back to Afghanistan to help family and friends. He liked to play volleyball with friends in the Washington suburb where many Afghans who fled their country now live. At 6 feet 5 inches, he had a powerful serve.

(AP) --- Mily Trevino-Sauceda was 9 when her mother fell as she worked to move irrigation pipes along rows of potato and alfalfa on an Idaho farm. Mily’s 10-year-old brother splashed water over their mother’s face and body while her children looked on, scared and crying. Their mother had fainted from the heat, and could never again work as fast or as long in the sun.

Decades later, the memory remains sharp for Trevino-Sauceda, who says few systemic changes have been made to safeguard farmworkers from extreme heat.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The harassment started to intensify as TV meteorologist Chris Gloninger did more reporting on climate change during local newscasts — outraged emails and even a threat to show up at his house.

Gloninger said he had been recruited, in part, to “shake things up” at the Iowa station where he worked, but backlash was building. The man who sent him a series of threatening emails was charged with third-degree harassment. The Des Moines station asked him to dial back his coverage, facing what he called an understandable pressure to maintain ratings.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican chairmen of three key House committees are joining forces to probe the Justice Department’s handling of charges against Hunter Biden after making sweeping claims about misconduct at the agency.

Leaders of the House Judiciary, Oversight and Accountability, and Ways and Means committees opened a joint investigation into the federal case into President Joe Biden’s youngest son days after it was announced last month that he will plead guilty to the misdemeanor tax offenses as part of an agreement with the Justice Department.

WASHINGTON, July 6 (Reuters) - U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump, has been voted out of the hardline House Freedom Caucus group after clashing with a fellow lawmaker, a caucus member said.

The move to expel the firebrand Greene from the roughly three-dozen-strong hardline group came weeks after she engaged in a heated clash on the House of Representatives floor with fellow hardliner Representative Lauren Boebert over the latter's plan to try to force a vote to impeach Democratic President Joe Biden.

WASHINGTON, July 7 (Reuters) - The United States announced on Friday that it will send Ukraine cluster munitions - prohibited by more than 100 countries - as part of an $800 million security package, a move Ukraine said would have an "extraordinary psycho-emotional impact" on Russian forces.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The lengthy process of putting the retired space shuttle Endeavour on display in the vertical launch position will begin this month in Los Angeles.

The California Science Center announced Thursday that the six-month process will get underway July 20 at the future Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center currently under construction in Exposition Park.