US

A US basketball star facing up to 10 years in a Russian jail on drug charges was prescribed medical cannabis for a chronic injury, her lawyers have said. Brittney Griner, 31, was arrested at a Moscow airport on 17 February after police said they found vape canisters containing cannabis oil in her luggage. On Friday,

Ivana Trump, the first wife of former US president Donald Trump, has died aged 73. Mr Trump made the announcement on his social media platform Truth Social. He wrote: “I am very saddened to inform all of those that loved her, of which there are many, that Ivana Trump has passed away at her home

Bereaved families of some of the Uvalde victims are in Washington DC this week to campaign for an end to gun violence. After a day of lobbying lawmakers to ban assault rifles like the one used to murder their loved ones, they were told a video had been leaked; CCTV from the hallways inside Robb

A man has been charged with raping a 10-year-old girl after she reportedly had to travel across state lines for an abortion following the US Supreme Court’s landmark ruling. Gerson Fuentes, 27, was arrested on Tuesday and made his first court appearance in Ohio the following day. He is now being held on a $2m

US First Lady Jill Biden has apologised for likening Hispanic people to tacos after her remarks were widely criticised. Mrs Biden was speaking in San Antonio, Texas, when she tried to compliment the Hispanic community by saying they were as “unique” as “breakfast tacos”. Her spokesperson Michael LaRosa said: “The first lady apologises that her

Twitter has filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk after the billionaire said he was pulling out of a $44bn (£36.5bn) deal to take over the company. The social media company asked a Delaware court to order Mr Musk to complete the merger at the agreed $54.20 per Twitter share. In its court filing, it said:

To those of us who aren’t astronomers, it’s hard to see what the big deal is. An image of points of light, coloured blobs and spirals of galaxies of the kind we’re familiar with. But in fact, this image is something very different indeed. Compared to the previous picture of this region of space captured

The “deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date” has been revealed. The picture was made public by NASA and is the first to be taken by the world’s most advanced telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). “We’re looking back more than 13 billion years… and we’re going further… this is

Mass shootings in America have become so common that an official handbook has been prepared to help mayors to cope when there is a shooting in their community. As the first funerals take place for the victims of the Independence Day mass shooting near Chicago in Illinois, the mayor of the city where it happened,

Sopranos actor Tony Sirico has died at the age of 79, his family said. Sirico played the role of Paulie ‘Walnuts’ Gualtieri in the popular HBO show, appearing in all six seasons. He died on Friday morning, according to a Facebook post by his brother Robert. The post said: “It is with great sadness, but

Amber Heard’s lawyers have made another call for a re-trial of her defamation case with Johnny Depp. In documents filed on Friday, the actress’s legal team said that one of the people originally summoned to serve as a juror in the trial had not appeared and had been replaced by someone else. The documents, reported

Elon Musk has pulled out of a deal to take over Twitter for $44bn (£36.5bn). In a statement provided to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, representatives for Mr Musk said Twitter breached terms of an agreement and “appears to have made false and misleading representations”. They said Twitter had also failed to provide data

A woman has been left feeling “very relieved and excited” after firefighters dived into a river to retrieve her huge diamond ring after it fell overboard. During a trip on a yacht along the Charles River in Massachusetts, US, the woman dropped the impressive piece of jewellery into the water below. The dive team from

Ahead of the biggest premiere the world of astronomy has ever seen, NASA has published the cosmic A-list that will be appearing through the lens of its colossal new space telescope. And it’s not just stars. There are galaxies, a planet too, and what promises to be the deepest view back in time that humanity

Ghislaine Maxwell has officially appealed against her conviction and sentence in the United States for sex trafficking. The 60-year-old was found guilty of luring young girls to massage rooms for disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein to molest between 1994 and 2004. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison at the federal court in the Southern

Derek Chauvin has been given a 21-year jail sentence for violating George Floyd’s civil rights. Chauvin will serve the federal sentence at the same time he serves his 22-and-a-half year sentence on state charges of murder and manslaughter. The former police officer pinned George Floyd to the pavement outside a Minneapolis corner shop for more

Jerry Harris, star of Netflix TV series Cheer, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison in the US for crimes relating to indecent images of children and soliciting sex from minors. The 22-year-old previously pleaded guilty to one count of travelling with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct and one count of

The man charged with killing seven people in a shooting on an Independence Day parade in Chicago has confessed to police that he fired on the crowd. Robert E Crimo III faces seven counts of murder over the shooting in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Illinois, and news of the confession – which was

A two-year-old has been left an orphan after both of his parents were killed when a rooftop sniper opened fire on the Fourth of July parade in Chicago. Irina McCarthy, 35, and Kevin McCarthy, 37, were among at least seven killed in the attack on Monday, in which around 50 people also suffered gunshot wounds

The man suspected of shooting dead six people in Chicago was dressed as a woman to hide his facial tattoos, in a bid to blend in as he escaped the scene, police have said. Robert E Crimo III, 21, was arrested after the shooting at a Fourth of July parade in the Chicago suburb of