US

A six-year-old girl and her parents have been shot dead while camping in Iowa, police have said. The US state’s public safety department said the bodies of Sarah and Tyler Schmidt, both 42, and their daughter Lula were found in their tent in the Maquoketa Caves State Park. A relative said the couple’s nine-year-old son,

China’s military has become significantly more dangerous and aggressive over the past five years, the US’ top military officer has warned. Speaking in Indonesia, General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the number of intercepts by Chinese aircraft and ships in the Pacific region on US and other partner forces has

Thousands of people have been ordered to flee their homes and businesses near a fast-moving wildfire near Yosemite National Park on Saturday. The bush fire which started on Friday afternoon has now exploded to cover more than 26 square kilometres (10 square miles) according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Evacuation orders

A man charged with trying to kill his sister – who recently woke from a two-year coma to name him as her attacker – has died. Daniel J Palmer III died on Thursday at a hospital in Charleston, West Virginia, six days after he was charged with attempted murder and malicious wounding of his sister

Joe Biden intermittently coughed his way through a virtual White House meeting, a day on from his testing positive for COVID. Mr Biden, who at 79 is the oldest person ever to serve as US president, appeared in good spirits but had a noticeably deeper voice and apologised for repeatedly breaking away from his speech

Donald Trump’s former adviser, Steve Bannon, has been found guilty of contempt of Congress after refusing to appear before the US Capitol riots hearing. Bannon was charged with two counts of criminal contempt – each carrying up to a year in jail. He will be sentenced in October. Outside the courtroom, he said he respected

Donald Trump watched the Capitol riots on television in his dining room and failed to take “immediate action in a time of crisis”, an investigation has heard. During the eighth hearing into the January 6 riots, the committee was told that the former president was aiming to stop or delay the congressional certification of Joe

Joe Biden, the US president, has tested positive for COVID. The president, 79, is “experiencing very mild symptoms”, his press secretary said as she announced the news. Karine Jean-Pierre said Mr Biden tested positive on Thursday morning. He is fully vaccinated and twice boosted. In a video message, the president thanked people for their concern,

Vladimir Putin is “probably too healthy”, the head of the CIA has said, playing down rumours the Russian president is suffering a serious illness such as cancer. William Burns, in a rare public appearance, also said Russia’s leader would be proved wrong in a belief he can win a bloody war of attrition against Ukraine

Donald Trump joined other family members as they paid their respects to his ex-wife Ivana Trump at her funeral in New York. Ms Trump, 73, who was the first wife of the former US president, died suddenly last Thursday at her home in Manhattan. Her death was ruled an accident by authorities, with the cause

A $5,000 reward has been posted as police continue to search for a man allegedly involved in the attempted murder of Lady Gaga’s dog walker, after he was accidentally released from jail. James Howard Jackson was being held on an attempted murder charge but was released from a jail in Los Angeles “due to a

An internal review has been launched into the inaction of dozens of police officers who failed to intervene as a gunman murdered 19 children and two teachers at a Texas primary school. The massacre by Salvador Ramos at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on 24 May was the focus of a damning report released on

A grizzly bear which mauled a woman to death in a rare predatory attack in Montana had become “food-conditioned”. Leah Davis Lokan, 65, had encountered the bear about an hour before the attack and was able to scare it away, but it returned around 4am and killed her. Experts believe the bear was attracted to

The US Office star Craig Robinson has thanked security and staff for helping people to safety after a man fired a gun inside a comedy club where he was set to perform. Robinson, best known for playing Darryl Philbin in the American adaption of Ricky Gervais’s hit British comedy, shared a video on social media

Three people have been killed and two injured in a shooting at a mall food court in Indiana after a man with a rifle opened fire. The man entered Greenwood Park Mall and began firing, fatally injuring three people before eventually being killed himself by an armed civilian, police say. Officers went to the mall

A damning new report into the Uvalde school massacre has condemned the almost 400 law enforcement officers who flocked to the scene for ‘failing to prioritise innocent victims’ safety over their own’. High school dropout Salvador Ramos killed 21 people, including 19 children, at Robb Elementary School in Texas on 24 May. A 77-page report,

An elderly woman who fell into a pond in Florida was killed after being grabbed by two alligators, authorities say. She was seen falling into the water by a golf course in Englewood late on Friday and struggled to stay afloat. While she was in the water, two alligators were seen grabbing her. She was

The Saudi crown prince told Joe Biden the US had also made mistakes, after the president confronted him over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Mr Khashoggi was killed and dismembered by a hit squad in the country’s Istanbul consulate in 2018. Mr Biden said he challenged Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) over the

A five-year-old boy has shot dead his eight-year-old brother in a “tragic accident” at a US home. After a 911 call on Thursday afternoon, sheriffs went to a house in Jefferson County, Arkansas, to find a child “unresponsive” inside. The county coroner was called and the child was declared dead. Four other siblings and the

When Donald Trump touched down in Saudi Arabia in 2017, King Salman was waiting on the tarmac. It was the president’s first overseas trip and the capital Riyadh had been transformed into a celebration of American culture, with flags, projections and music. Joe Biden‘s arrival could not have been more different. Awaiting him as he

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

A disgraced US attorney has been charged with murder following the deaths of his wife and younger son, who were shot outside their home. Alex Murdaugh is already in jail on dozens of other criminal charges that have piled up in the months since his wife Maggie, 52, and their 22-year-old son, Paul, were killed.

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

The euro has dropped below parity against the dollar the first time in almost two decades after news that US inflation reached 9.1% in June. The figures will place further pressure on the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates by 75 basis points later this month, as raising interest rates is one of the tools

New, damning allegations about the final days of Donald Trump’s presidency have emerged during the latest hearing about the Capitol riots. One committee member said the latest revelations made Watergate – one of the biggest scandals in US political history – look like “a cub scout meeting”. Here are five things we learned during Tuesday’s

The head of Islamic State in Syria has been killed in a US drone strike, according to the Pentagon. Maher al-Agal, one of the jihadist group’s top five leaders, died on Tuesday outside the town of Jindaris, in northwest Syria, close to the Turkish border, said US Central Command. An unidentified senior IS official, who

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,

Hollywood actor Paul Rudd has become a real-life superhero after reaching out to a schoolboy whose yearbook was only signed by two students. Rudd, who plays Ant-Man in the Avengers franchise, reportedly responded to a now viral Facebook post by 12-year-old Brody Ridder’s mother, Cassandra, when he received just two autographs wishing him well. Cassandra,

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