US

A school in Florida has banned the poem read at Joe Biden’s inauguration after a single complaint. The unnamed parent said Amanda Gorman’s poem The Hill We Climb was “not educational” and contained “indirectly (sic) hate messages”, adding that it could “cause confusion and indoctrinate students”. Gorman, 25, said on Instagram that she was “gutted”

A truck driver has been arrested after crashing into security barriers near the White House. A preliminary investigation revealed the driver “may have intentionally struck the security barriers at Lafayette Square” in Washington DC, said Anthony Guglielmia, a spokesperson for the US Secret Service. There were no injuries to any Secret Service or White House

A man accused of stabbing to death four university students in their beds in Idaho last year has refused to enter a plea after appearing in court. Criminology student Bryan Kohberger, 28, appeared at Latah County courtroom on Monday. District Judge John Judge entered a not-guilty plea on his behalf. Last week, a grand jury

The owner of WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook has been slapped with a record fine of €1.2bn (£1.04bn) by the Irish data protection regulator. It’s the biggest fine ever levied for breach of the general data protection regulations (GDPR). Meta has incurred the fine for transferring EU citizens data to the United States for processing and

SpaceX’s second private flight has launched passengers, including Saudi Arabia’s first female astronaut, to the International Space Station. The SpaceX Falcon rocket launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre on Sunday night. The crew will be led by a retired NASA astronaut who now works for the company, which arranged the 10-day trip. It is the

A woman has been arrested four years after a newborn baby was found abandoned in a plastic bag. Karima Jiwani, 40, faces a number of charges in the US state of Georgia, including criminal attempt to commit murder, aggravated assault, reckless abandonment and cruelty to children in the first degree, according to the Forsyth County

US basketball star Brittney Griner has returned to the court for her first professional league game since her Russian prison ordeal. The 32-year-old had not played alongside her Phoenix Mercury team mates in a match since 2021. The two-time Olympic gold medallist was released from a Russian jail in a high-profile prisoner exchange with the

The US airman accused of leaking classified files will remain in jail until his trial, a judge has ruled. Jack Teixeira is accused of leaking scores of documents, including sensitive information on America’s allies and operations abroad, on to the social media site Discord. The 21-year-old has been held behind bars since his arrest on

The US and its allies plan to provide Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets, a White House official has said. The move comes after US President Joe Biden previously refused requests from Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the aircraft. The timing for when Ukraine will receive the jets – and which countries will provide them –

Harry and Meghan have demanded an agency hand over photos and videos taken by paparazzi during a “chase” in New York earlier this week – but it has refused. Lawyers representing the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have sent a letter to the Backgrid agency – but in response, the company reportedly told Harry that

The Walt Disney Company has announced it is scrapping plans to build a new campus in central Florida following a year-long dispute with Governor Ron DeSantis. Mr DeSantis has been attacking the company after it opposed a state law banning classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in early years. Disney filed a First

Montana has become the first state in the US to ban Chinese-owned popular video-sharing platform TikTok from personal devices. The state’s Republican governor Greg Gianforte signed legislation prohibiting mobile application stores from offering the app. The legislation makes it illegal for app stores to offer TikTok, but does not prevent those who already have the

Prince Harry’s spokesperson sparked a media storm after releasing a statement saying the Sussexes were involved in a “near catastrophic” car chase that was caused by “highly aggressive paparazzi” on Tuesday evening. The spokesperson said the “relentless pursuit” lasted more than two hours and “resulted in multiple near collisions involving other drivers on the road,

American actor Danny Masterson drugged women’s drinks so he could rape them before relying on his prominence in the Church of Scientology to avoid the consequences, a jury has been told in closing arguments at his trial. Masterson, a former star of the hit US sitcom That 70s Show, is on trial for rape for

A girl whose disappearance was featured on Netflix’s “Unsolved Mysteries” was found alive in North Carolina last week, six years after she was allegedly abducted by her mother. Kayla Unbehaun, who was born in Illinois, was nine years old when she went missing in 2017 while in the care of her mother, Heather Unbehaun. In

A man with a metal baseball bat has attacked two employees at a politician’s office in the US. Democratic congressman Gerry Connolly said the man walked into his northern Virginia office on Monday morning, asked for him, and then struck two female workers with the bat. One of the victims, an intern on her first

At least four people have been killed and several others injured in a shooting in the US on Monday. Police in Farmington, New Mexico, said they believe the shooter, who was “confronted and killed on scene”, acted alone. “The suspect’s identity is unknown and there are no other known threats at this time,” the police

The ‘Godfather of poker’, Doyle Brunson has died at the age of 89. The legendary figure of the game died on Sunday in Las Vegas, his family announced, via his agent on Twitter. Their statement said: “It is with a heavy heart we announce the passing of our father, Doyle Brunson. “He was a beloved

A city named Kyle is calling on namesakes from around the world to help it break a record… for the largest gathering of Kyles. The Texas city is hoping to bring together thousands of people with the first name Kyle in order to clinch the Guinness World Record for the largest gathering of people with

They couldn’t build the wall over a mountain. It’s why the US-Mexico border wall ends at the foot of Mount Cristo Rey and is reduced to a block of concrete a foot high. It’s the “add-on” to fill the gap between wall and mountain, like something you’d use to zone off an industrial estate car