New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins isn’t concerned that a renewed partnership agreement between the US and Papua

President Joe Biden spoke with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Sunday and agreed they would meet on Monday afternoon to try to break the stalemate over legislation to raise the national debt limit. A call took place, according to a White House readout, which gave no indication to the tone of the discussion. Mr McCarthy characterised the call as “productive” in a comment to reporters. A day earlier, the Speaker said negotiations had taken a step backward following Mr Biden’s remarks that he believed the 14th Amendment could be used to circumvent Congress on the issue. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to move forward until the president can get back into the country,” Mr McCarthy said on Saturday. “Just from the last day to today they’ve moved backwards. They actually want to spend more money than we spend this year.” Mr Biden’s call with Mr McCarthy took place while the president was on Air Force One bound for the US on Sunday. He had cut short his attendance at the G7 summit in Japan in order to lead negotiations with Republicans on the issue. During an appearance on Sunday show, Meet the Press, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen once again warned that the federal government is projected to run out of money on or about 1 June. Should the US be unable to pay its outstanding obligations to debt holders, or even raise questions about its ability to do so, it risks a downgrade of the US’s credit rating which would affect interest rates on future loans. The last official downgrading of the United States’s credit rating occurred in 2011, when Standard and Poor’s dropped the US’s rating from “AAA” to “AA+”. “I indicated in my last letter to Congress that we expect to be unable to pay all of our bills in early June and possibly as soon as June 1. And I will continue to update Congress, but I certainly haven’t changed my assessment. So I think that that’s a hard deadline,” Sec. Yellen said. She added that the possibilty was “quite low” that the US could extend its ability to pay its obligations through 15 June - referencing remarks made by Republicans who suggested Treasury could maneuver past a 1 June deadline without hitting a default. ”[I]t’s hard to be absolutely certain about this, but my assessment is that the odds of reaching June 15th, while being able to pay all of our bills, is quite low,” said Ms Yellen. “[M]y assumption is that if the debt ceiling isn’t raised, there will be hard choices to make about what bills go unpaid.” Mr Biden has been roundly accused by conservatives of refusing to negotiate cuts to federal spending ahead of the debt ceiling deadline. The White House, meanwhile, has blamed Republicans for putting the country’s credit rating at risk. Earlier on Sunday, the president spoke at a press conference and did not indicate that he was completely opposed to reaching a compromise with Republicans on spending levels, though he warned that the GOP must be willing to move in his direction as well. “It’s time for Republicans to accept that there’s no bipartisan deal to be made solely — solely — on their partisan terms,” said Mr Biden. “They have to move as well.” Read More ‘Putin will not break our resolve,’ Joe Biden tells G7 Top House negotiator on debt limit says it's time to 'press pause' as talks come to standstill Biden meeting with Indo-Pacific leaders at G7 summit while confronting stalemate over US debt limit Debt ceiling showdown: Biden and congressional leaders to meet as McCarthy pushes for faster deal Most say pair debt limit increase with deficit cuts, but few following debate closely: AP-NORC poll G7 finance leaders promise support for Ukraine, vow to enforce sanctions against Russia

The Labour Party called for an ethics inquiry into Home Secretary Suella Braverman, after a newspaper report that

UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman asked civil servants to help her avoid a speeding fine and penalty points

Debt limit talks between the White House and House Republicans stopped, started and stopped again heading into a weekend where President Joe Biden and world leaders watched from afar, hoping high-stakes negotiations would make progress on avoiding a potentially catastrophic federal default. In a sign of a renewed bargaining session, food was brought to the negotiating room at the Capitol on Saturday morning, only to be carted away hours later. No meeting was likely Saturday, according to a person familiar with the state of the talks who was not authorized to publicly discuss the situation and spoke on condition of anonymity. Biden's administration is reaching for a deal with Republicans led by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. The sides are up against a deadline as soon as June 1 to raise its borrowing limit, now at $31 trillion, so the government can keep paying the nation’s bills. Republicans are demanding steep spending cuts the Democrats oppose. Negotiations had came to an abrupt standstill Friday morning when McCarthy said it was time to “pause” talks. Then the teams convened again in the evening, only to quickly call it quits for the night. Biden, attending a meeting of global leaders in Japan, tried to reassure them on Saturday that the United States would not default, a scenario that would rattle the world economy. He said he felt there was headway in the talks. “The first meetings weren’t all that progressive, the second ones were, the third one was,” he said. The president said he believes "we’ll be able to avoid a default and we’ll get something decent done.” Negotiators for McCarthy said after the Friday evening session that they were uncertain on next steps. “We reengaged, had a very, very candid discussion, talking about where we are, talking about where things need to be, what’s reasonably acceptable," said Rep. Garret Graves, R-La. Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C. was asked if he was confident an agreement over budget issues could be reached with the White House. He replied, “No.” As the White House team left the nighttime session, Biden counselor Steve Ricchetti, who is leading talks for the Democrats, said he was hopeful. “We're going to keep working,” he said. McCarthy had said resolution to the standoff is “easy,” if only Biden's team would agree to some spending cuts Republicans are demanding. The biggest impasse was over the fiscal 2024 top-line budget amount, according to a person briefed on the talks and granted anonymity to discuss them. Democrats contend the steep reductions Republicans have put on the table would be potentially harmful to Americans, and they are insisting that Republicans agree to tax increases on the wealthy, in addition to spending cuts, to close the deficit. Wall Street turned lower as negotiations came to a sudden halt. Experts have warned that even the threat of a debt default would could spark a recession. Republicans argue the nation's deficit spending needs to get under control, aiming to roll back spending to fiscal 2022 levels and restrict future growth. But Biden's team is countering that the caps Republicans proposed in their House-passed bill would amount to 30% reductions in some programs if Defense and veterans are spared, according to a memo from the Office of Management and Budget. Any deal would need the support of both Republicans and Democrats to find approval in a divided Congress and be passed into law. Negotiators are eyeing a more narrow budget cap deal of a few years, rather than the decade-long caps Republicans initially wanted, and clawing back some $30 billion of unspent COVID-19 funds. Still up for debate are policy changes, including a framework for permitting reforms to speed the development of energy projects, as well as the Republican push to impose work requirements on government aid recipients that Biden has been open to but the House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York has said was a "nonstarter." McCarthy faces pressures from his hard-right flank to cut the strongest deal possible for Republicans, and he risks a threat to his leadership as speaker if he fails to deliver. Many House Republicans are unlikely to accept any deal with the White House. Biden is facing increased pushback from Democrats, particularly progressives, who argue the reductions will fall too heavily on domestic programs that Americans rely on. ___ Associated Press writers Zeke Miller and Josh Boak in Hiroshima, Japan, and AP Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report. Read More Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Will Biden's hard-hat environmentalism bridge the divide on clean energy future? Russia warns of ‘colossal risks’ if F-16 fighter jets sent to Ukraine G7 'outreach' an effort to build consensus on global issues like Ukraine, China, climate change

A Utah mother who has been charged with poisoning her husband spent the final day of his life on calls with the Internal Revenue Service and a money lender as she struggled with around $2.5million in debt, according to newly-filed court documents. Kouri Richins, 33, is charged with murder over the death of her 39-year-old husband Eric Richins, the father of her three boys, in March 2022. Before her arrest earlier this month, she had been promoting the release of a children’s book she wrote as a grieving widow about dealing with loss. New documents filed on Thursday in Summit County, where Ms Richins is being held, offered new details about previous poisoning attempts. The documents reveal that three days after Ms Richins bought fentanyl pills in a hand-to-hand transaction in her driveway, on Valentine’s Day 2022, she “prepared a sandwich for Eric Richins and placed it on the seat of his truck with a love note”. “Shortly after consuming the sandwich, Eric Richins broke out in hives and had difficulty breathing,” the documents stated. “Eric found his son’s epipen and administered it to himself and slept. Eric Richins believed that he had been poisoned. Eric Richins told a friend that he thought his wife was trying to poison him.” The couple had been having financial disagreements, and Mr Richins had removed his wife as a beneficiary from his will and estate, according to documents. “In September 2020, Eric Richins discovered that the Defendant had obtained and spent $250,000 home equity line of credit on the Kamas home, withdrawn at least $100,000 from his bank accounts, and spent in excess of $30,000 credit cards,” the new documents state. “The Defendant had also been appropriating distributions made from Eric Richins’ business for the purpose of making federal and state quarterly tax payments and not paying the taxes. The stolen tax payments totaled at least $134,346. Eric Richins confronted the Defendant and she agreed to repay him.” In October 2020, Mr Richins consulted a divorce lawyer and an estate-planning lawyer, changing his will to form a living trust and placing his estate in control of his sister, Katie Richins-Benson, for the primary benefit of his three children. He transferred his partnership interest in his stone masonry business to the trust and replaced Ms Richins as the beneficiary of his $500,000 life insurance policy with the trust. She was unaware of this. Mr Richins also was unaware that his wife had taken out at least four life insurance policies on him totaling nearly $2m, according to the filings. In late January 2022, Ms Richins took out a new insurance policy on her husband. It was issued the following month, on 4 February. The next week she procured illicit fentanyl, according to the documents, and the sandwich incident followed days later. Ms Richins reached out again to contacts who helped her obtain illegal drugs in late February, according to documents, claiming that the “fentanyl pills that she previously provided were not strong enough and asked that she procure some stronger fentanyl”. One contact, according to documents, “initially stated that the Defendant specifically asked for ‘some of the Michael Jackson stuff’ during this request for fentanyl, but subsequently conceded that the Defendant may have made the Michael Jackson reference during her first request for fentanyl”. Through this contact, Ms Richins arranged to meet another person at a gas station to buy fentanyl on 26 February, 2022 according to the documents. On 1 March, her “outstanding state and federal tax liability was $189,840,” and she owed “a hard money lender at least $1,847,760”. She also owed her husband “at least $514,346,” the documents stated. On 3 March, she “had a lengthy telephone call with the IRS and talked to her hard money lender,” the charging documents noted. Hours later, she prepared her husband a Moscow Mule cocktail. Ms Richins told investigators that her husband drank the cocktail while in bed, and she slept in one of the boys’ bedrooms because the child was having a night terror. When she awoke around 3am, Ms Richins said, she returned to her room and found Eric cold to the touch, prompting her to call 911. While she told police she’d left her phone in the couple’s room while caring for her child, “the status on her phone shows that it was locked and unlocked multiple times and there was also movement recorded on the phone,” the documents state. “In addition, tolls and phone billing data for Defendant’s phone show that messages were sent and received during that time.” Mr Richins was pronounced dead on 4 March, 2022. Almost immediately Ms Richins, a real estate agent, closed on a multi-million-dollar mansion the couple had been arguing about. Two days after his death, she arranged for a locksmith to drill into her husband’s safe. When his sister and trustee objected, Ms Richins “became enraged and punched [her] in the face and neck,” the documents state. “Sheriff’s deputies responded and called Eric Richins’ estate planning lawyer from the scene. Here, the Defendant learned for the first time of the existence of the Eric Richins Living Trust.” Ms Richins was arrested last week and a 19 May detention hearing has been postponed until 12 June. Between her husband’s death and her arrest, Ms Richins had been fighting with his family and trust regarding his estate and, particularly, the couple’s sprawling home, where they married on 15 June 2013. Presenting herself as a grieving widow, Ms Richins also authored a children’s book titled Are You With Me? on dealing with loss. She appeared on a local TV show to promote the book weeks before she was taken into custody. Lawyer Greg Skordas, a Richins family spokesman, told The Independent on Wednesday: “It was right up until the end that she was carrying on as though nothing had happened, and that she was a victim, and she was a martyr and promoting her book. “And I don’t know to what extent she knew this was coming or suspected it, but we certainly did.” A lawyer for Kouri Richins has not responded to requests for comment from The Independent. Read More Four students stabbed to death, a weeks-long manhunt and still no motive: What we know about the Idaho murders Lori Vallow had two alleged accomplices in her children’s murders. One will never face justice

Rudy Giuliani fended off accusations he’s failed to fully comply with his legal duty to produce records and

President Joe Biden dropped his reluctance to sending F-16s to Ukraine after months of pressure from Kyiv and

Western nations have imposed severe measures against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

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Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte quit the party under which she won as she denounced “political powerplay,” indicating

Pakistani police are seeking Imran Khan’s permission to search his home for supporters accused of attacking military facilities