America in Brief

The former legal adviser to now President-elect Donald Trump had been convicted of defamation in December 2023 for suggesting on social media that Georgia election workers, mother and daughter Ruby Freeman and  Shaye Moss, had been involved in election tampering during the 2020 presidential election.
Prosecutors ordered Giuliani to appear in a New York court on Nov. 7 to explain the apparent lack of progress in the transaction, giving him a Nov. 11 deadline.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin had previously thrown out the plea deal in a surprise decision on Aug. 7, days after Judge Susan Escallier passed it on July 31.
On Nov. 7, U.S. Air Force Col. Matthew McCall ruled that Austin didn’t have clear authority to revoke the plea agreements.
The plea deals made with alleged 9/11 plot mastermind Khalid Shaikh (Sheikh) Mohammad and his accomplices Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin’ Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsaw would end their incarceration at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, in which they have remained for more than a decade.
The ruling ended a “parole in place” process announced in August that would allow almost 500,000 illegal immigrant spouses of U.S. citizens and their stepchildren to remain in the United States while they apply for legal status, preventing them from having to leave the country to apply, a process that could take 3 to 10 years.
As part of the Biden administration’s “Keeping Families Together” initiative, the policy applied to illegal immigrants living in the United States for 10 years and married as of June 17, 2024.
At the time of the announcement, Texas, accompanied by 16 other Republican-led states, accused the Biden administration of exacerbating the illegal immigration crisis.
Union members representing the U.S. west coast workers on Nov. 4 agreed to a 38 percent pay rise over four years, up from the previously rejected 35 percent.
Boeing’s 33,000 unionised workers went on strike on Sept. 14, represented by the International Association of Machinists.
Once seen as an American jewel, Boeing has been through a rough patch in recent years.
In April, Boeing paid a $243.6 million (£190 million) fine over a federal fraud charge following two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019 owing to faulty flight software that the U.S. giant failed to declare.
Prosecutors gave Boeing a safety monitoring compliance mandate for three years to avoid prosecution, which the company violated three days before its end when a door panel blew off a 737 Max mid-flight in January.