The Kennedy family has hit out at their sibling Robert F Kennedy Jr for endorsing Donald Trump in the US presidential race, calling it a “betrayal” of their values.
Mr Kennedy, also known as RFK Jr, announced he was suspending his independent campaign for the presidency to lend his support to the Republican candidate in certain states.
“In about 10 battleground states where my presence would be a spoiler, I’m going to remove my name, and I’ve already started the process,” Mr Kennedy said during a news conference in Phoenix.
RFK Jr, whose father Bobby Kennedy was assassinated as he ran for president back in 1968, said the Democratic Party was no longer “champions of the constitution” and had departed “dramatically” from the “core values” he grew up with.
Mr Kennedy, 70, cited free speech, the war in Ukraine and “a war on our children” as among the reasons he would try to remove his name from the ballot in battleground states.
“These are the principal causes that persuaded me to leave the Democratic Party and run as an independent, and now to throw my support to President Trump,” he said.
Mr Kennedy is also the nephew of former Democratic US president John F Kennedy, who was killed in 1963.
RFK Jr was 14 when his father, the former US attorney general Robert F Kennedy, JFK’s brother, was killed.
Image: Robert F Kennedy in August 1964. Pic: AP
In response to RFK Jr’s announcement, his brothers and sisters shared a statement, saying: “We want an America filled with hope and bound together by a shared vision of a brighter future, a future defined by individual freedom, economic promise and national pride.
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“We believe in Harris and Walz.
“Our brother Bobby’s decision to endorse Trump today is a betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold most dear.
“It is a sad ending to a sad story.”
Image: Kamala Harris addressing the DNC this week. Pic: AP
‘In an honest system, I would have won’
RFK Jr hit out at the media and the Democrats during his announcement, while saying his campaign team had “pulled off a miracle” by making him a presidential candidate.
“You showed everyone democracy is still possible here,” he said. “Today I’m here to tell you I will not allow your efforts to go to waste.”
Mr Kennedy added he believed that in an “honest system” he would have won the election.
Image: John Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. Pic: AP
He criticised the Democratic Party, saying it had waged “legal warfare” against him and Mr Trump, who is running against vice president Kamala Harris to be elected in the presidential vote on 5 November.
He also said of Democrats: “Who needs a policy when you have Trump to hate?”
Image: Mr Kennedy is expected to publicly endorse Donald Trump for president. Pic: Reuters
According to Sky News’ partner network NBC, Mr Kennedy will be speaking at a Trump rally later today.
News of him endorsing the 78-year-old former Republican leader comes after Mr Trump appeared to try and woo Mr Kennedy last month.
In footage shared by Mr Kennedy’s son, Mr Trump says: “I would love you to do something – and I think it would be so good for you and so big for you,” apparently referring to the 2024 election race.
Mr Trump added: “We’re gonna win,” to which Mr Kennedy said: “Yeah.”
Reports of Mr Kennedy’s decision emerged earlier in court documents filed by the 70-year-old’s campaign team.
A Pennsylvania court filing asked to remove him from the state’s ballot, according to the AP.
And on Thursday, Arizona officials said Mr Kennedy filed paperwork to remove himself from the presidential ballot there.
Anti-vax views and turn against Democrats
Despite his family’s history with the Democratic Party, RFK Jr was running as an independent, after leaving the Democrats in October.
Mr Kennedy has made a name for himself as an anti-vaxxer during the pandemic – and beforehand.
Image: Pic: Reuters
As well as sharing disinformation online, Mr Kennedy became a regular on the anti-mandate rally circuit during the coronavirus response.
At one event, he compared the US government’s use of vaccine mandates to laws in Nazi Germany.
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“Even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland, you could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did,” he told the crowd at a march in January 2022.
“Today, the mechanisms are being put in place that will make it so none of us can run, and none of us can hide.”
The US has abstained from a UN General Assembly vote on a resolution it drafted on the war in Ukraine after the body approved amendments proposed by European countries.
The vote took place on the same day the 193-member assembly approved a competing European-backed resolution from Ukraine which demanded Russia immediately withdraw from the country.
The duelling proposals reflect the tensions that have emerged between the US and Ukraine after Donald Trump suddenly opened negotiations with Russia in a bid to quickly resolve the conflict.
It also underscores the strain in the US’ relationship with Europe over the Trump administration’s decision to engage with Moscow.
The US-drafted resolution, marking the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, had called for an end to the conflict but did not mention Moscow’s aggression.
It also made no mention of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
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However, it was amended after European nations said that it should include references to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the need for a lasting peace in line with the UN Charter.
It was also amended to include references to Ukraine’s sovereignty.
The amended US-drafted resolutionwon 93 votes in favour, while 73 states abstained – including the US – and eight – including Russia – voted no.
Meanwhile, there were 93 votes in favour of theUkraine-backed resolution,while 65 abstained and 18 voted against it.
The UK, France and Germany were among the countries that voted in favour of the Ukraine-backed resolution, which called for a “comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine”.
The US, Russia, Belarus and North Korea were among those that opposed it.
Image: The US voted against Ukraine’s resolution. Pic: AP
The outcome marks a setback for the Trump administration in the UN General Assembly, whose resolutions are not legally binding but are seen as a barometer of world opinion.
However, the result also shows some diminished support for Ukraine – as more than 140 nations had voted to condemn Russia’s aggression in previous votes.
The United States had tried to pressure the Ukrainians to withdraw their resolution in favour of its proposal, according to a US official and a European diplomat.
US deputy ambassador Dorothy Shea, meanwhile, said multiple previous UN resolutions condemning Russia and demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops “have failed to stop the war,” which “has now dragged on for far too long and at far too terrible a cost to the people in Ukraine and Russia and beyond”.
“What we need is a resolution marking the commitment from all UN member states to bring a durable end to the war,” Ms Shea said.
Mr Zelenskyy responded by saying the US president was living in a Russian-made “disinformation space”.
Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron is at the White House holding talks with Mr Trump to discuss a peace plan for Ukraine.
At the start of the meeting, Mr Trump told reporters Russian President Vladimir Putin will accept European peacekeepers in Ukraine as part of a potential deal to end the war in the country.
Mr Trump and Mr Macron have been meeting after the pair had earlier joined a call between G7 leaders.
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An American Airlines flight travelling from New York to New Delhi was diverted midair due to a “bomb threat”.
Flight 292 landed at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Rome Fiumicino Airport “due to a possible security issue,” the airline said in a statement on Sunday, adding later the threat “was determined to be non-credible”.
The airline did not clarify what the security issue was, but a source familiar with the situation told Sky News’ US partner network NBC News it was a bomb threat sent via email.
The Federal Aviation Administration said the crew reported the security issue.
“Safety and security are our top priorities, and we apologise to our customers for the inconvenience,” the airline said in a statement.
Image: The view from the cockpit of the fighter jet. Pic: Italian air force/Reuters
Image: Pic: Italian air force/Reuters
The flight requested a diversion to Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Rome Fiumicino Airport at around 2pm local time, Roberto Rao, a spokesperson for the airport.
“We immediately agreed and organised a safe landing,” Mr Rao told NBC News.
“We don’t know what the security concern was, but my opinion is that it was serious enough to divert the plane, but not urgent, because we received the alert when the plane was over the Caspian Sea, a three hours’ flight from Rome.”
Once in Italian airspace, the plane was escorted by two Italian air force fighter jets and landed in Rome at around 5.30pm local time.
Image: The flight on the ground in Rome. Pic: AP
‘What’s going on here?’
Neeraj Chopra, one of the 199 passengers on board, said the captain announced the plane had to turn around about three hours before it was supposed to land in New Delhi because of a change in “security status”.
Mr Chopra, who was traveling to India to visit family, described the mood on board as calm until the captain later announced that fighter jets would be escorting their plane to Rome.
“I felt a little panic of, okay, what’s going on here?” Mr Chopra told the Associated Press. “There’s got to be like something bigger going on here.”
Jonathan Bacon, 22, added that once on the ground, all passengers were loaded on to buses and taken to the terminal, where each passenger and their personal items underwent additional security screenings that were time-consuming and felt “slightly heightened”.
More than two hours after landing, Mr Bacon and his friend said they were still waiting for their checked baggage. “It was definitely the longest flight to Europe I’ve ever taken,” he said.
American Airlines said the plane was inspected and cleared to depart again for New Delhi “as soon as possible” on Monday, after the crew gets some rest.
At least three people have died and two are injured after a boat capsized off the coast of New York, police in the US have said.
The vessel sent out a distress call from the Ambrose Channel just after noon on Sunday.
One of the injured is in a critical condition and another is described as stable, NBC, Sky’s US partner, said.
Five people were rescued from the water after the New York Fire Department (FDNY), the New York Police Department (NYPD), and the US Coast Guard responded to the call for help.
The boat capsized in an area known as Breezy Point, NBC said, quoting the NYPD.
Breezy Point is “a neighborhood at the tip of Queens’ Rockaway peninsula,” according to NBC New York, citing the Coast Guard.
Six people were said to be in the water after the boat capsized, the FDNY said.
Two of the victims were airlifted to Staten Island University Hospital and three were taken to Coast Guard Station Sandy Hook, where its emergency medical crews were waiting to treat them, the agency said.
Four of the five people rescued from the sinking boat were unresponsive, and some of them were given CPR, the Coast Guard said.
The Coast Guard said on Sunday night it is still searching for one person missing in the water roughly five miles (8km) southeast of Breezy Point.
Nothing else is known about the victims or what kind of boat was involved.
Police said it is not clear what happened but it did not appear the vessel collided with another boat. The Coast Guard said it was notified of a “vessel taking on water” and described the boat as “sinking”.