US

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has been named the world’s most powerful woman for the second year in a row. The German politician, who has held the post since 2019, finished ahead of European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, US Vice President Kamala Harris, and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who came fourth.

A house exploded as police were investigating reports of gunshots being fired from the property by a man. Footage of the blast in the US showed a huge fireball shoot up into the air as the entire home went up in flames and collapsed, spraying debris all around. Witnesses said the explosion shook nearby buildings

Elon Musk has apologised for endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory, admitting it may have been “literally the worst and dumbest post I’ve ever done”. The apology came amid a fiery rant against advertisers who have stopped promoting on his social media platform X. The advertising row, which has seen Disney and Warner Bros pull their

Elon Musk has been accused of promoting a long-debunked conspiracy theory which alleged high-profile Democrats ran a paedophile abuse ring from a Washington pizza restaurant. The billionaire posted and later deleted a meme referencing “Pizzagate” on X on Tuesday, NBC News reports. It was an image from TV show The Office, with fake dialogue superimposed

Joe Biden has called for the truce between Hamas and Israel in Gaza to be extended after more hostages were released on Sunday. The latest captives to be freed include four-year-old dual Israeli-American national Abigail Edan, whose parents were reportedly killed in the 7 October attacks. The US president said her father was “gunned down

Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) has sued the watchdog group Media Matters alleging it manufactured a report to show advertisers’ posts alongside neo-Nazi and white nationalist content. Major US companies including Disney, Warner Bros and Sky News’ parent company Comcast pulled advertising from X over concerns about their ads showing up next to hate speech

Major US companies including Disney, Warner Bros and NBC parent company Comcast have pulled advertising from X (formerly Twitter) amid a row over Elon Musk’s alleged endorsement of an antisemitic conspiracy theory. The Tesla chief on Wednesday agreed with a post on X that falsely claimed Jewish people were stoking hatred against white people, saying the

Chinese president Xi Jinping has signalled that China will be sending new pandas to the United States. Mr Xi made the offer on a visit to California where he was taking part in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperative (APEC) conference. Although he did not share much detail about the pandas, it was suggested that the next

Direct lines of communication between American and Chinese military forces are to be reopened for the first time in more than a year, Joe Biden has announced. Speaking after a meeting with China’s premier Xi Jinping in California, the US president said the restoration of military-to-military communications would help to prevent accidents which could spiral

Matt LeBlanc has paid tribute to his Friends co-star Matthew Perry, saying it was an “honour to share the stage with you and to call you my friend”. In a post on Instagram, LeBlanc wrote: “It is with a heavy heart I say goodbye. The times we had together are honestly among the favourite times

It has been a year since President Xi and President Biden last met, and it’s hard to overstate just what a rollercoaster US-China relations have been on since then. The fact this meeting is happening at all is the result of months of delicate planning. But for all the “tough-line”, “hard-man” images that both men

Surgeons have performed the world’s first ever whole-eye transplant, a feat hailed as a breakthrough despite the patient not yet regaining his sight. Doctors “never expected it to work at all”, patient Aaron James said, but the eye has shown signs of health, such as functioning blood vessels and a promising retina. It has been

Smartphones may be able to detect how drunk a person is based on changes in their voice, according to a new study. Researchers used sensors in smartphones to record a person’s voice before and after drinking. They then put the recordings through a digital program to isolate and measure certain aspects, like frequency and pitch.

A former CIA officer accused of drugging and sexually assaulting at least two dozen women during various overseas postings has pleaded guilty to federal sex abuse charges. Brian Jeffrey Raymond kept nearly 500 videos and photographs he took of naked, unconscious women, including many in which he can be seen opening their eyelids, groping or

A Donald Trump supporter who bear-sprayed at least eight police officers during the US Capitol riots has been jailed for three years. Edward Rodriguez was identified by members of the so-called Sedition Hunters – an online community of investigators helping the FBI and police find people who allegedly committed crimes during the riots on 6

Donald Trump is ahead of US President Joe Biden in five key swing states a year ahead of the 2024 election, according to a poll. The former president was leading the incumbent in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania, the poll for the New York Times and Siena College found. Mr Biden was ahead of

A nurse is facing multiple charges of administering lethal or potentially lethal doses of insulin to 22 patients at several health care centres across Pennsylvania. Heather Pressdee was charged on Thursday with two counts of first-degree murder, 17 counts of attempted murder and 19 counts of neglect of a care-dependent person, the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s

It took just four hours for a jury to find fallen “crypto king” Sam Bankman-Fried guilty of fraud. The 31-year-old has been convicted of stealing billions of dollars from customers of FTX, which was the world’s second-largest crypto exchange before its dramatic collapse last year. To this day, FTX users – at least 80,000 of

A paper message which police have suggested had the “tone” of a suicide note was discovered in the search for the suspect in the Maine mass shooting, officials have said. Mike Sauschuck, Maine’s public safety commissioner, said the body of suspect Robert Card was found in the back of a trailer in the car park

Officers are chasing up more than 500 tips and leads they have received as they hunt for the suspected gunman who killed 18 people in a mass shooting in the US state of Maine. Maine commissioner of public safety, Michael Sauschuck, said the tips and leads “vary greatly” and officers were working round the clock