US

Paula Abdul has accused former American Idol producer Nigel Lythgoe of sexually assaulting her when she was a judge on the show. The singer’s lawsuit also accuses him of another assault, years later, when she worked on So You Think You Can Dance. Lythgoe denied the accusations and said he is “shocked and saddened”. Abdul

A woman has sued Michael Jackson’s older brother Jermaine, accusing him of sexually assaulting her in 1988.  The suit against The Jackson 5 singer was filed in California under the state’s Sexual Abuse and Cover Up Accountability Act, which allows civil suits in sexual assault cases after the statute of limitations has expired if one

Police in the US are searching for a 35-year-old woman accused of killing two of her children before disappearing. Officers in the state of Colorado have issued an arrest warrant for Kimberlee Singler, who is wanted on suspicion of murder, attempted murder, child abuse and assault. Police responded to a 911 call about a burglary

Maybe my perspective is skewed, overconsumption of global events perhaps, but it feels to me unnervingly like we’re nearing a perfect storm right now.  Out of a chaotic global pandemic, humanity seems to have lurched into deeply uncertain times. We tend to struggle to focus on more than one crisis at a time, but we

Witnesses in the case of a man charged with orchestrating the 1996 murder of Tupac Shakur may be the target of a kill order, prosecutors have warned. Duane “Keffe D” Davis, an ex-gang leader from Compton, California, is the only person still alive who was in the vehicle from which shots were fired towards the

A secretive US government spaceplane has embarked on a classified mission aboard one of the world’s most powerful rockets. The X-37B craft was launched from NASA‘s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy. It has been on six previous missions since 2010, most recently in 2020, but the rocket used on Thursday

Maine’s top election official has disqualified Donald Trump from the state ballot in next year’s US presidential primary election – becoming the second state to bar the former president over the Capitol riots. Maine secretary of state Shenna Bellows concluded that Mr Trump incited an insurrection when he spread false claims about voter fraud in

The father of an American driver who fled the UK after a crash left a British nurse unable to walk has set up a GoFundMe page to raise funds for his son’s legal costs. Issac Calderon, 22, has been charged with causing serious injury by dangerous driving after a collision on the A4103 near Shucknall

Cher has filed for a conservatorship of her youngest son over fears he can’t be trusted with his own money, according to reports. In legal documents seen by the New York Post and celeb news site TMZ, the pop icon suggests Elijah Blue Allman is “substantially unable to manage his own financial resources”. According to

A 23-year-old woman was shot dead on Christmas Eve after an argument with her brothers about presents, police in Florida have said.  Two teenage brothers have been arrested, according to the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office. Abrielle Baldwin was shot in the chest by her 14-year-old brother while she was holding her baby in a carrier,

Kanye West has issued an apology in Hebrew to the Jewish community on social media for previous antisemitic comments – saying he “regrets any pain” he may have caused. The 46-year-old rapper, who changed his name to Ye in 2021, made a series of antisemitic remarks last year which led to his Twitter (now X)

Beyonce’s childhood home was saved from burning down after a fire broke out early on Christmas Day. Located in the Third Ward neighbourhood of Houston, Texas, the Formation singer lived at the two-story house until she was five years old. At around 2am on Monday a fire broke out at the home, with the Houston

At Memorial Park in Santa Monica, a coastal city close to Los Angeles, the skate park, baseball and softball fields have long been popular, but they are now being eclipsed by a different sport. A queue of people, from teenagers to retirees, are waiting to play pickleball and there’s a similar clamour every day to

John and Melody Hennessee plan to spend the rest of their lives cruising around the world – and they reckon it could be as much as half as expensive as their life on land. The couple, originally from Florida, sold almost everything they owned three years ago, including their main business and their home, and

A dead body was found in a freezer by a family in San Diego, police have said, with details around how it ended up there still a mystery. The San Diego Police Department said “out-of-town” family members immediately called police when they found the body in a home in Zion Avenue at around 11.45am (7.45pm

Donald Trump was handed a win in the courts after a proposed fast-track ruling over whether the former president can be prosecuted was rejected. Mr Trump – leading in the race to be the Republican nominee in 2024 – faces criminal charges over allegations he conspired to overturn the 2020 election. He has argued he

A woman with a rare double uterus has given birth twice in two days. Medical phenomenon Kelsey Hatcher, from Alabama in the US, was born with two functional uteri that each have their own cervix. After falling pregnant in both wombs – described as a one-in-a-million occurence – Mrs Hatcher has now given birth to

Donald Trump urged election officials in Michigan to “fight for our country” and not certify Joe Biden’s presidential election victory in 2020, according to local media. The Detroit News reports a phone call made by the former president to two fellow Republicans on the Wayne County Board of Canvassers, in which he claims his party

The owner of Pornhub has admitted to making more than $864,000 (£679,000) from sex trafficking by posting videos of women on its site without their consent, US prosecutors have said. Aylo Holdings “knowingly enriched itself by turning a blind eye” to victims who told the company they had been lied to and forced into the

A woman whose parents bought $10,000 worth (£8,700) of Disney+ streaming vouchers by mistake turned to TikTok to fix their error. Andie Coston, from Illinois, said her parents were planning a big Christmas holiday for all 16 of their family members to a Disney theme park and tried to save money by buying gift cards