US

The judge in Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex trafficking trial wants jurors to work more days and longer hours because of a spike in the number of coronavirus cases in New York. Judge Alison Nathan said a positive COVID-19 case among jurors would endanger “our ability to complete this trial” and asked them to work every day

Ghislaine Maxwell has been found guilty of recruiting underage girls to be sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein. The 60-year-old former socialite and ex-girlfriend of billionaire financier Epstein is now facing the prospect of years in prison. As the verdicts were read out in court in New York, Maxwell appeared to show little reaction behind a

The mother of Valentina Orellana-Peralta, a 14-year-old girl who was fatally shot by police in Los Angeles, has said seeing her daughter “die in her arms” was one of the “most profound pains any human being can imagine”. Speaking at a news conference via a translator, Soledad Peralta said she begged officers to help her

The Los Angeles Police Department has released the bodycam footage from an incident that led to an innocent teenager being fatally shot as officers opened fire on a suspect. Valentina Orellana-Peralta, 14, was in the changing room at the Burlington Coat Factory in North Hollywood on 23 December, when a bullet struck her through a

What is thought to be a time-capsule has been discovered under the remains of a plinth that held a statue of a Confederate leader in Virginia. Crews wrapping up the removal of the Robert E Lee statue in Richmond in the state made the discovery on Monday, with the likely contents said to be long

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

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

Sex And The City star Chris Noth has said allegations of sexual assault made against him by two different women are “categorically false”. The US actor, best known for his role as Mr Big in the hit TV series and current spin-off And Just Like That, has been accused of assaulting two women more than

When Duane “Yellow Feather” Shepard was a child, his mother would point out Bruce’s Beach and tell him: “That used to be our people’s land.” Decades later that small slice of land, nestled next to the Pacific Ocean in the glittering city of Manhattan Beach in California, is finally being returned to his family’s ownership.

A former employee of Jeffrey Epstein has told Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial that she “never” witnessed any misconduct by the British socialite in the six years she worked with her. Cimberly Espinosa, 55, started working for J Epstein & Co as a legal assistant in October 1996 when she was 28 years old. She later became

Derek Chauvin has pleaded guilty to a federal charge of violating George Floyd’s civil rights. The 45-year-old former Minneapolis police officer is currently serving a state jail term of 22-and-a-half years for killing Mr Floyd in May 2020. Chauvin was convicted in April this year of murder and manslaughter charges in Minnesota after he knelt

President Joe Biden has visited Kentucky to see the devastation left by the tornado that ripped through the town of Mayfield. The recent storm that hit Midwest America has been described as “one of largest tornado outbreaks in US history”. Eighty-eight people were killed when more than 30 tornadoes tore through Kentucky and seven other

COVID-19 deaths in the United States have topped 800,000, with more than 25% of fatalities coming after vaccines became available earlier this year. The number of deaths hit what President Joe Biden called a “tragic milestone” on Tuesday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. More than 200,000 COVID-19 fatalities have occurred since April,

On the street corners in Dawson Springs, the Stars and Stripes still flutter, but the town has been flattened. The destruction is hard to absorb. It isn’t just buildings knocked over. Here, trees have been stripped, cars upturned. And it’s the granular damage which hits you: the bits and pieces of people’s lives, churned up

A two-month-old girl, a 94-year-old Korean War veteran and an Amazon worker are among the victims that have been named following a surge of devastating tornadoes that ripped through five US states. At least 88 people have now been confirmed dead – including 74 in Kentucky – and more than 100 are unaccounted for. Here

Anne Sacoolas is due to face criminal proceedings in the UK after being charged with causing Harry Dunn’s death by dangerous driving. The 44-year-old US citizen is accused of killing the teenager in a road crash outside US military base RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire on 27 August 2019. The case will be heard at Westminster