US

Sarah Weddington, who won a landmark court case to make abortions legal across the US, has died at the age of 76. The Texas lawyer passed away in her sleep early on Boxing Day morning at her home in Austin, her former student and colleague Susan Hays said. She had been in poor health for

Around 8,000 flights were cancelled globally between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day as airlines experienced staff shortages due to COVID-19. Approximately 3,000 of the cancelled flights were in or out of the United States, where the highly transmissible Omicron COVID variant is causing a surge in infections, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware.com The website’s tally

Hundreds of flights have been called off for a third day in a row in the US as the Omicron variant of COVID continues to spread. More than 720 commercial flights going into or out of the US were cancelled on Sunday, according to a tally on flight-tracking website FlightAware.com. This meant thousands of people

A surfer has been killed in an “apparent shark attack” off the central coast of California on Christmas Eve, authorities have said. The surfer, whose identity has not yet been released, was found in the water near Morro Rock, about 200 miles (320km) north of Los Angeles. in Los Angeles, California, at around 10.45am on

A White House Christmas event took an awkward turn on Friday when a caller dropped a vulgar anti-Biden slogan into a conversation with the US president.  Joe Biden was hosting a traditional festive phone call with children tracking Father Christmas’ sleigh when their father told the president “Let’s go Brandon”. Mr Biden, apparently unaware of

Alec Baldwin has shared a Christmas message thanking his supporters for their well wishes but says Halyna Hutchins’s death is “never going to be behind us”. The 63-year old actor said he feels “lucky” to be at home with his family this Christmas and spoke of a “really tough” period following the fatal shooting incident

A 14-year-old girl has been shot and killed in a Los Angeles clothing shop’s dressing room after police opened fire on an assault suspect. Police also shot and killed the suspect at the Burlington shop in the North Hollywood area of San Fernando Valley, police said. A man had been acting erratically and threatening to

A former US police officer who said she mistakenly fired her gun instead of her Taser in the fatal shooting of a man has been found guilty of manslaughter. Kimberly Potter was convicted over the death of 20-year-old motorist Daunte Wright during a traffic stop in April in Minneapolis. Potter, 49, was found guilty of

Ghislaine Maxwell will spend her 60th birthday in prison after the jury deliberating her fate was sent home for Christmas. The former girlfriend of disgraced billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein turns 60 this Saturday, 25 December, with the jury not expected to return until next Monday. Jurors ended their second full day of deliberations into the

A former US senator and his wife have been taken to hospital after their $5.5m mansion was destroyed in a fire. Charles ‘Chuck’ Robb, 82, and Lynda Robb, 77, were injured when the blaze engulfed the luxury property in northern Virginia. Dramatic pictures showed firefighters battling to extinguish the inferno as it ripped through the

The US government is buying 500 million at-home rapid COVID tests that Americans will be able to order online for free starting in January, Joe Biden says. The president also announced that more testing sites will be set up. And 1,000 military medical personnel will be deployed as part of efforts to help hospitals overwhelmed

A group of missionaries, who trekked for up to 10 miles by moonlight with a baby and a toddler to escape their kidnappers in Haiti, are being reunited with their families in America. The 12 people, from Christian Aid Ministries, a US-based church, took their chance to slip past guards on 15 December and used

Omicron is now the dominant form of coronavirus in the US and made up 73% of new cases last week, according to federal health officials. It represents a near six-fold increase in the variant’s share of infections in just one week. In some areas Omicron is even more dominant, responsible for an estimated 90% of

Footage of Jeffrey Epstein’s mansion in Florida has been shown in court as the closing arguments of Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial take place. The video of the late paedophile’s Palm Beach estate was shown as evidence in Maxwell’s federal sex-trafficking hearing. Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player 1:56 Inside Epstein’s Florida mansion

Dr Anthony Fauci says Omicron is “raging around the world” as he warned of the increased risk posed to unvaccinated people. President Joe Biden’s chief medical officer said the new variant has an “extraordinary capability” for transmission. He called on Americans to get their vaccines, take tests and wear face masks in a bid to

Joe Biden has visited the graves of his first wife and infant daughter, as he marks 49 years since they were killed in a car crash. The US president visited St Joseph on the Brandywine Roman Catholic Church in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware on Saturday with First Lady Jill Biden and daughter Ashley. Mr

An 18-year-old woman and a 13-year-old boy managed to escape a burning building in New York by climbing out a window and scaling down a pipe, video footage has shown. The fire broke out on the fourth floor of an apartment block, located in Avenue D, in the East Village area of Manhattan, at around

Ghislaine Maxwell’s legal team at her trial has tried to discredit her accusers by suggesting there were discrepancies between the statements they gave to the FBI and what they have said in court. Four women, testifying for the prosecution, allege Maxwell recruited and groomed them when they were teenagers for sexual abuse by her ex-boyfriend

A man was kicked off a flight in the US for wearing women’s underwear as a face mask. In footage taken by another passenger and shared widely online, Adam Jenne can be seen wearing a pink thong over his face as he sits in his seat before the flight from Fort Lauderdale to Washington took

Partial human remains found nearly 40 years ago in a bin bag have been confirmed as those of Frank Little Jr – a former songwriter and guitarist for R&B group The O’Jays. The bag was found on 18 February, 1982, behind a now-closed business in Twinsburg, about 25 miles southeast of Cleveland. But it wasn’t