US

Chris Rock has spoken about being smacked in the face by actor Will Smith on the Academy Awards stage. During the Oscars ceremony in Los Angeles last year, Smith walked onto the stage and slapped Rock, who had made a joke at the expense of the actor’s wife, actress Jada Pinkett Smith, as he was

It feels like we’ve just sat through one of Prince Harry’s therapy sessions. More than that, we’ve all just paid £17.99 for the privilege, albeit with a free copy of Spare thrown in. This was billed as an “intimate conversation” and that’s exactly what we got, over an hour of Prince Harry talking us through

The first photo of South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh since he was sentenced for the murder of his wife and son has been released. The new mugshot, from the South Carolina Department of Corrections, shows Murdaugh with a shaved head and wearing a yellow prison jumpsuit. The department said he will stay in South Carolina’s

A US woman who was declared legally dead after disappearing more than three decades ago has turned up alive in Puerto Rico, her family and police have said. Patricia Kopta, now 83, had last been seen in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1992 when investigators began looking into her disappearance. She was known to be an “eccentric”

US approval of the abortion medication mifepristone has been revoked, in a decision that could further disrupt reproductive healthcare for millions of people. Mifepristone blocks the hormone needed to maintain a pregnancy and has been approved in the US since 2000 for medical abortion and miscarriage management. It is used safely in more than 60

A lesion removed from President Joe Biden’s chest a month ago was cancerous, a White House doctor has confirmed. The lesion was a basal cell carcinoma – a common form of skin cancer – the president’s long-term physician, Dr Kevin O’Connor, said on Friday. Mr Biden, 80, requires no further treatment after “all cancerous tissue

Alex Murdaugh has been convicted of murdering his wife and son after a six-week trial that revealed the prominent lawyer’s spectacular fall from grace. The 54-year-old shot his wife Margaret, 52, four or five times with a rifle outside dog kennels on their rural Colleton County property in South Carolina on 7 June 2021. On

DNA evidence from an alleged sexual assault in 1994 has led to the arrest of a man for a 43-year-old murder in California. Harold Carpenter, 63, is believed to have killed Patricia Carnahan in 1979, the El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office in California said. Ms Carnahan’s body was found at a campground at Lake

A man is facing charges after he killed and skinned what he thought were two coyotes – only to find they were a family’s pet German shepherds. Michael Konschak, 61, of Carmel, New York, told a court in Danbury, Connecticut, that he was ashamed of what he had done back in November. He said: “Please

The director of the FBI has said the agency believes COVID-19 “most likely” came from a lab leak in China. “The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident in Wuhan,” Christopher Wray told Fox News. Mr Wray said he could not

China has denounced the US over its TikTok bans, saying it has been “abusing state power”. Congress and more than half of US states have banned TikTok from government-issued mobile devices, following cybersecurity concerns. TikTok is used by two-thirds of American teenagers but there is concern in Washington that China could use its legal and

The trial of a prominent US lawyer for the murder of his wife and son has prompted the reopening of investigations into other deaths. Alex Murdaugh, 54, was found of guilty of shooting dead his wife Margaret, 52, and their youngest son Paul, 22, on their estate in South Carolina. Prosecutors say the lawyer carried

Fox Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch has admitted that some Fox News commentators endorsed false claims made by Donald Trump and his allies that the 2020 presidential election was stolen – and that he didn’t try to stop them. The claims are from a deposition unsealed on Monday, which is part of a lawsuit against the

Disney’s self-governing district that it uses to run its Florida theme parks has been taken over by the state’s governor, in an apparent punishment for its opposition to legislation about LGBTQ+ education. Ron DeSantis, who is widely tipped as a challenger for the White House next year, signed a bill taking control of Reedy Creek

The COVID-19 virus most likely leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, according to the US Energy Department. In a report seen by the Wall Street Journal, the US agency said the virus was not being engineered as part of a weapons program. Recently given to the White House and members of Congress, the updated report

A winter storm that has made its way over the Pacific has brought several days of flooding, freezing temperatures and snowfall to some parts of Southern California. Rivers have swelled to dangerous levels and snow has even fallen in low-lying areas around Los Angeles – with some areas receiving over 30 inches of snow, and

Several US media publishers are dropping the Dilbert comic strip after its creator described black people as members of “a racist hate group”. Several media officials denounced the comments by creator Scott Adams as racist, hateful and discriminatory. Dilbert is a long-running comic strip poking fun at office culture. In an episode of the YouTube

Convicted serial murderer Ramon Escobar is suspected of killing his new cellmate on Friday at a central California prison, officials have said. Escobar, 51, shared a jail room with Juan Villanueva at North Kern State Prison in Delano. Villanueva, 53, was found unresponsive on 24 February at 8.49am. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation

Jill Biden has dropped the strongest hint yet that President Joe Biden will run for a second term – saying there is “pretty much” nothing left to do but work out the time and place for the announcement. The US president has long said it is his intention to seek re-election, though he has yet

The production company behind the film Rust has agreed to pay a $100,000 fine to an occupational health and safety bureau following a fatal shooting on set. The New Mexico Environment Department’s Occupational Health and Safety Bureau (OHSB) had issued a $136,796 (£114,457) fine, the maximum allowable by state law, last April. It was later