US

A US fighter jet has been shot down after it was mistakenly hit by an American missile cruiser over the Red Sea. Both pilots in the aircraft ejected and were rescued – one of them had minor injuries. An investigation is under way after what the US military described as an “apparent case of friendly

US president-elect Donald Trump says he has appointed British TV producer Mark Burnett as his special envoy to the UK. Mr Burnett, 64, created and worked alongside Mr Trump on the US series, The Apprentice, which made the president-elect internationally famous for firing a succession of contestants vying for roles in his businesses. The London-born

The US government has narrowly avoided a crippling shutdown after politicians agreed on a last-minute spending deal. Failure to reach an agreement would have meant federal employees would have missed pay ahead of the festive season, impacting various public services. Plans to approve the government’s budget were thrown into disarray this week after billionaire Elon

The US says it has killed Islamic State (IS) leader Abu Yusif in Syria. US Central Command Forces (Centcom) said it carried out an airstrike targeting Yusif – who also goes by Mahmud – in an area controlled by the Syrian regime and Russian force before the recent fall of Bashar al Assad. Another IS

US politicians have rejected a spending bill endorsed by president-elect Donald Trump – leaving Congress with no clear plan to avert a fast-approaching government shutdown. On Wednesday, Mr Trump dismissed a bipartisan compromise, which Republicans and Democrats had reached to prevent a shutdown just days before the Christmas winter break. Instead, he urged Republicans in

Luigi Mangione, the man accused of shooting dead UnitedHealthcare boss Brian Thompson, has arrived in New York where he faces new charges. The 26-year-old was flown to Manhattan by plane and helicopter after he agreed to be extradited from Pennsylvania, where he was arrested last week after five days on the run. He now faces fresh federal

President Joe Biden has set fresh climate targets for the United States before climate sceptic Donald Trump takes office in January. Today the outgoing president has unveiled a new goal to slash US emissions of greenhouse gases by 61% from 2005 levels by 2035. The 10-year plan should generate “more good-paying jobs, more affordable energy,

Five members of the same family, including a two-year-old girl, have been found dead at a home in the US state of Utah. A 17-year-old boy was also found alive but with gunshot wounds. It is not yet clear whether he is a suspect or victim in the case, according to local police. Roxeanne Vainuku,

A Disney-themed dance party has been described as “disgusting” and “sick” after showing images of murder suspect Luigi Mangione alongside the Hannah Montana track, He Could Be The One. The DJ-led event in Boston on Friday was billed as featuring music from the Disney Channel. Images flashed up on a screen of Mangione, who is

The man accused of killing an insurance firm chief in New York has been charged with murder as an act of terrorism. Luigi Mangione is suspected of shooting Brian Thompson, chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, on 4 December, and was arrested after a manhunt that ended with police finding the 26-year-old in a McDonald’s. He had

Donald Trump has said Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy have “gotta make a deal” to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. The US president-elect said the conflict “has to stop” and that people were “dying at levels nobody has ever seen”. He also claimed it could take “100 years” to rebuild Ukraine’s cities from

Three people, including a young suspect, have died and several are injured after a shooting at a school in Wisconsin. The shooting occurred at Abundant Life Christian School in the state capital Madison and children were among the dead, police said. “Officers found multiple victims with gunshot wounds when they arrived at the scene,” said

ABC has settled a defamation lawsuit with Donald Trump and will pay $15m towards his presidential library. The settlement describes the funding as a “charitable contribution” from the US broadcaster, which also agreed to pay $1m in legal fees to Mr Trump’s attorney Alejandro Brito’s law firm. The claim concerned a segment of George Stephanopoulos’

A man convicted of participating in the January 6 Capitol riots has told Sky News he expects Donald Trump to set him free.  Speaking from his Washington jail cell, Gregory Purdy said he anticipates the president-elect will “exonerate and pardon” him. Mr Trump has said he intends to pardon “many” of the rioters whom he

“What Sean Combs is being accused of is not rare. He’s not an anomaly.” For a year in the early noughties, Elisabeth Ovesen was a hip-hop video star dancing alongside some of the biggest names in the business. It was an era of big-budget music videos filled with, in rap especially, money, cars, and women.

A woman who has accused rappers Jay-Z and Sean “Diddy” Combs of raping her when she was 13 after the MTV Video Music Awards in 2000, has acknowledged inconsistencies in her story. The woman, who is identified only as “Jane Doe” (a US legal term to say that she is anonymous), told Sky’s US partner

Texas has sued a New York doctor for allegedly prescribing abortion pills to a woman near Dallas. A lawsuit, filed by Texas attorney general Ken Paxton on Thursday, alleges Dr Margaret Carpenter unlawfully prescribed abortion-inducing drugs to the 20-year-old, in violation of the state’s laws. While no criminal charges are involved, Mr Paxton said the

Fourteen North Korean nationals have been accused of using false identities to get IT jobs with US companies and siphon money back to their communist country. The practice, if proven, is in violation of US sanctions against the restrictive nation. An indictment filed in a federal court in Missouri alleges that $88m (£70m) was generated

Joe Biden has said he will commute the sentences of almost 1,500 non-violent offenders and pardon 39 others in the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history. The outgoing president said in a statement that America “was built on the promise of possibility and second chances”. He called it a “great privilege” of his

Mark Zuckerberg’s firm Meta has donated $1m to Donald Trump’s inauguration fund as the Facebook founder tries to mend ties with the president-elect. In August, Mr Trump threatened to imprison the billionaire if he did “anything illegal” to influence the presidential election. But last month the pair dined together at Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in