US

A school in Florida has banned the poem read at Joe Biden’s inauguration after a single complaint. The unnamed parent said Amanda Gorman’s poem The Hill We Climb was “not educational” and contained “indirectly (sic) hate messages”, adding that it could “cause confusion and indoctrinate students”. Gorman, 25, said on Instagram that she was “gutted”

The owner of WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook has been slapped with a record fine of €1.2bn (£1.04bn) by the Irish data protection regulator. It’s the biggest fine ever levied for breach of the general data protection regulations (GDPR). Meta has incurred the fine for transferring EU citizens data to the United States for processing and

From a little league baseball star to the Republican Party’s culture warrior-in-chief, the rise of Ron DeSantis is impossible to ignore. Now showdowns with Disneyland and Donald Trump loom on the horizon as he considers a run for president. Under his watch, Florida has become a hotbed for so-called anti-woke laws such as the heavily-criticised

The moment a US police officer points a gun at a suspect while kneeling on the bonnet of his moving car – before clinging to the roof of the vehicle as the motorist drives away at speed – has been revealed in a newly released video. An officer had been seen approaching the car before

A copy of the Hebrew Bible, thought to be 1,100 years old and one of the world’s oldest intact books, has been sold at auction for $38m (£30m). The Codex Sassoon, a leather-bound, handwritten parchment volume, was bought by Alfred H Moses, a former US ambassador to Romania, in New York on Wednesday. It is

Montana has become the first state in the US to ban Chinese-owned popular video-sharing platform TikTok from personal devices. The state’s Republican governor Greg Gianforte signed legislation prohibiting mobile application stores from offering the app. The legislation makes it illegal for app stores to offer TikTok, but does not prevent those who already have the

The CIA has urged Russians to share their secrets about the Ukraine war in a new video posted on social media.  The Russian-language video was first posted on Telegram – a social media site used widely by both sides in the war – as well as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. “We want to reach those

Elon Musk has announced his new Twitter chief executive – NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino. The billionaire said he was “excited” to announce the hiring of Ms Yaccarino – who he said would focus “primarily on business operations” at Twitter. Musk, who completed a $44bn (£35bn) takeover of the social media site in October, also announced

Donald Trump called the woman he sexually abused a lying “wack job” and refused to say who he wants to win the Ukraine war in a wide-ranging interview on US television. A jury in a civil case ruled this week that he assaulted – but didn’t rape – E Jean Carroll in a department store

A Texas gunman who killed eight people at a Dallas-area shopping mall had “neo-Nazi ideation”, police have said. But the gunman, identified as 33-year-old Mauricio Garcia, appeared to have singled out his victims randomly and without regard for race, age or sex when he opened fire with an AR-15 style rifle on Saturday. He was

Donald Trump has been found liable for battery and defamation, after a civil trial jury found he sexually abused writer E Jean Carroll in the 1990s. The jury rejected the rape claim but awarded the former Elle magazine advice columnist $5m (£4m) in damages. The nine-person jury began discussing the battery and defamation lawsuit on

Donald Trump has promised to appeal and called it a “disgrace” after a jury found him liable for sexually abusing a writer in the 1990s.  The former US president was also found to have defamed E Jean Carroll, but the civil trial rejected her claim she was raped during the encounter. Trump must pay the

Donald Trump did not show up at a civil rape trial against him because “he knows what he did” to the woman accusing him of allegedly raping her, a jury heard in closing remarks. Lawyers for writer E Jean Carroll, who is suing the former president, said Mr Trump “didn’t even bother to show up

The King shared a joke with Lionel Richie as he and the Queen joined the singer for a surprise appearance on the hit US show American Idol. The King jokingly asked the star if he was going to be using one of the halls at Windsor Castle “all night long” – a nod to one

A gunman who killed at least eight people and injured several others at a Texas shopping centre was a 33-year-old suspected neo-Nazi sympathiser, police have said. Police have named Mauricio Garcia as the gunman who opened fire on shoppers at the Allen Premium Outlets mall, in a suburb north of Dallas, on Saturday. Garcia, who

President Joe Biden called on Republican members of Congress to pass gun control bills in the wake of yet another mass shooting that left nine people dead, including the gunman, at a Texas mall on Saturday. The shooter was named on Sunday as 33-year-old Mauricio Garcia, according to two senior law enforcement officials who spoke

Apple has beat Wall Street expectations and market trends in reporting increased iPhone sales in its second quarter results. Both revenues and profits were above investor predictions as a record number of iPhones were sold for the second three month period in its financial year. Sales for the year ending 1 April dropped overall –

Police are searching for a suspected gunman after one person was killed and at least four others were injured in a shooting at a medical facility in Atlanta. Authorities have named the suspected shooter as 24-year-old Deion Patterson, and say he is considered armed and dangerous. Police said there had been no additional shots fired

Tori Bowie, a former world champion sprinter, has died at the age of 32. Bowie, from the US, won gold in the 100 metres during the World Championships in 2017, after claiming podium finishes at the Rio Olympics in 2016 – including as part of the winning 4x100m relay team. In a statement, her management

Bodies are strewn on the doorstep of San Francisco’s main government building, contorted by the effects of fentanyl, a painkiller 100 times more potent than morphine. We’re two streets away from the headquarters of Twitter, in a city district with more billionaires than anywhere on Earth, but this has become an open-air drug market. Trevor