US NEWS.

The Independent • 15 July 2024

What went wrong at the Copa America final in Miami

There were chaotic scenes as thousands of soccer fans – some without tickets – tried to get into the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami to watch the Cop America final, leading to arrests, injuries and people suffering heat exhaustion.Fans of finalists Argentina and Colombia were seen breaking through entrance gates, climbing through air vents and trying to dodge police officers, leading to the match start being delayed by over an hour.Fans started arriving about three hours before the 8pm start time for...

The Independent • 15 July 2024

LinkedIn cofounder tries to explain comment saying he wished he could ‘martyr Trump’

LinkedIn’s co-founder Reid Hoffman has sought to clarify comments he made about Donald Trump before the assassination attempt against him, in which he said that he wished the former president was a “martyr.”The internet entrepreneur said at an Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference last week, before the shooting incident at Trump’s campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday night, that he wished the presumptive Republican candidate for the White House was "an actual martyr” – a comment that then...

The Independent • 9 July 2024

Texas cleans up after Beryl slams state before moving north as post-tropical cyclone

Eight people have died, and millions more in Texas could be left without power for days while Beryl moves northeast.After making landfall in the United States as a Category 1 hurricane on the coast of Matagorda on Monday morning, Beryl was downgraded to Tropical Storm then to a Depression and now as a post-tropical cyclone as it traversed inland across eastern Texas, bringing heavy rainfall, strong winds and life-threatening conditions.Around eight people are believed to be dead as a result of t...

The Independent • 26 June 2024

Biden pardons thousands of veterans convicted under military ban on gay sex

President Joe Biden has pardoned what could be thousands of veterans who were convicted under a military law that banned consensual gay sex, saying that he is using his clemency authority to right “a historic wrong.”

Service members endured more than 60 years of this law, which was put in place in 1951 under the Uniform Code of Military Justice in Article 125 criminalized sodomy, including between consenting adults.

The law has since been rewritten in 2013 after it repealed the part of the cod

The Independent • 21 June 2024

Trump campaign raises $141m in May to close funding gap to Biden

Donald Trump significantly outraised President Joe Biden in May, despite becoming the first US president to be convicted of a crime.

Trump’s campaign and the Republic National Committee (RNC) reported that they raised a massive $141m in May. However, they declined to report how much money the campaign had left in their funds at the end of the month, which they are not legally required to report until July.

The Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee raised $85m in May, with $212m

The Independent • 20 June 2024

Biden takes lead over Trump in latest Fox News poll

Donald Trump has fallen behindJoe Biden in the latest election poll from Fox News.

The Republican candidate is two points behind President Biden in the latest national presidential election poll by Fox News, which is the first time Biden has taken the lead in a Fox poll since October.

Biden now stands at 50 per cent, whereas Trump is currently polling at 48 per cent in the head-to-head poll.

Since May, the poll has seen a three-point change in the presidential race, as Trump was ahead by one

The Independent • 24 May 2024

Hundreds of Harvard students walk out of graduation ceremony in Gaza protest

Hundreds of Harvard students in graduation robes walked out of their commencement on Thursday in solidarity with Palestine, and the 13 students who had been barred from the ceremony over protest encampments.

Graduating students from the top Ivy League school stood up during the commencement ceremony on Thursday and walked out chanting “Free, free Palestine” while others shouted, “Let them walk, let them walk,” during the ceremony in reference to the 13 graduates who were not allowed to receive

The Independent • 18 December 2023

Ruby Franke, former parenting YouTuber, pleads guilty to child abuse

Former family vlogger Ruby Franke pleaded guilty to multiple counts of aggravated child abuse brought against her earlier this year for abusing and starving two of her children.

Ms Franke, 41, a mother of six, who gave parenting advice via a once-popular YouTube channel called “8 Passengers”, wore a gray and white striped jail uniform as she stood before a judge in the Washington County, Utah courtroom on Monday.

She pleaded guilty to each of the first three charges individually, with two othe

The Independent • 18 December 2023

YouTuber Ruby Franke used to offer parental advice. Now she’s accused of child abuse

“8Passengers” was a space where Ruby Franke would share her and her family’s life in Utah on YouTube.

The channel was focused on sharing parental advice as well as family vlogs featuring the 41-year-old mother, her husband, Kevin Franke and six children.

The couple first founded their now-deleted channel back in 2015 and accumulated over two million subscribers before speculation began to mount in 2020 about their activities.

Viewers were often concerned about the couple’s harsh parenting sty

The Independent • 12 December 2023

What we know about the Bronx apartment building collapse

Over 100 people have found themselves unexpectedly homeless after their apartment building in the Bronx partially collapsed.

But, somewhat miraculously, no one was killed or seriously injured.

The building, which contains roughly four dozen apartments, was having facade work done as recently as a few days ago.

Then, on Monday, a whole corner of the building collapsed out of nowhere, exposing apartments and creating a massive pile of debris on the street below.

No cause has yet been given by

The Independent • 29 November 2023

Nancy Ng went missing on a Guatemala yoga retreat. Could a key witness help find her?

Nancy Ng, a Californian woman, mysteriously disappeared while kayaking on Lake Atitlán in Guatemala more than a month ago.

Ms Ng was allegedly out on the kayaking excursion with 10 other people from a yoga retreat where she was spending a break away from work.

Authorities believe that Ms Ng drowned while out on the lake. But that theory has been challenged by family members questioning why the last people to see Ms Ng allegedly haven’t cooperated with the investigation from the state.

After w

The Independent • 24 November 2023

A chemical train derailed in Kentucky. As residents return home, questions remain

In the small, remote town of Livingston, Kentucky, residents had been preparing their turkeys and setting their tables for Thanksgiving the following day.

The roughly 200 people had no idea that a train carrying chemicals had derailed off the tracks nearby.

In total, 16 large train cars derailed – two containing molten sulphur. The chemicals instantly caught fire and sent large clouds of smoke billowing into the air.

The atmosphere quickly filled with toxic sulphur dioxide, prompting authorit

The Independent • 2 November 2023

Seven key takeaways from Robert De Niro and Graham Chase Robinson court case

A four-year legal battle has come to a head as Robert De Niro and his former employee face off at trial in a federal court in Manhattan.

The lawsuit was brought against the Hollywood actor by Graham Chase Robinson, 41, who worked for Mr De Niro between 2008 and 2019 at his company Canal Productions.

Mr De Niro also has sued Ms Robinson, seeking three years’ worth of her salary for allegedly stealing items such as airline points from him.

Alleged back-scratching, urinating while on the phone a

The Independent • 23 October 2023

A judge made a key ruling in a couple’s divorce. He was shot dead hours later

A typical day for Maryland judge Andrew Wilkinson ended in unspeakable tragedy as he was gunned down in his own driveway.

Mr Wilkinson was sworn in as a judge in 2020 to the Washington County Circuit Court, excited to serve his community.

His life was cut short on 19 October - and a manhunt is now underway for 49-year-old Pedro Argote, who is considered a person of interest in the case.

The two men crossed paths - albeit not physically - hours before the killing, when Wilkinson presided over

The Independent • 14 September 2023

How Danelo Cavalcante survived for two weeks on the run

Escaped prisoner Danelo Cavalcante has revealed that he managed to evade capture for two weeks on the run by burying his own faeces and surviving on watermelon.

Cavalcante escaped Chester County Prison in Pennsylvania back on 31 August after he was handed a life sentence for murdering his former girlfriend.

It was not until almost two weeks later – on the morning of 13 September – that the escaped prisoner was finally back in handcuffs, after he was captured by a tactical team and police K-9 i

The Independent • 6 October 2023

Tupac Shakur murder suspect asks why no media captured his arrest in bodycam video

Bodycam footage of the arrest of the man charged with the murder of 90s rap star Tupac Shakur reveals him questioning police as to why they didn’t show up with a media entourage.

Duane Keith “Keffe D” Davis, 60, was arrested on 29 September in Las Vegas in connection to the murder of Mr Shakur, widely regarded as one of the most influential artists in the history of hiphop.

In the police video, Mr Davis can be seen walking with a bottle of water in nearby Henderson when Las Vegas Metro officer

The Independent • 22 September 2023

Gen Milley reveals shocking comments Trump made about wounded vet

General Mark Milley, the soon-to-retire chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has made a claim exposing Donald Trump for making “disturbing” comments about a wounded US Army veteran as well as other eye-popping statements.

Mr Milley is the 20th chairman, a role which he started when Mr Trump gave it to him in 2019. Before this, he was the 39th chief of staff of the Army and served in multiple commands throughout his career

In a tell-all interview with The Atlantic to commemorate the end of hi

The Independent • 27 September 2023

US soldier who fled to North Korea back in American custody

US soldier Travis King crossed over the border from South to North Korea in an alleged attempt to defect from the army after his experiences of “inhumane treatment” and “racism” while in service.

The 2nd ClassPrivate had passed through airport security as he was being sent home from South Korea for disciplinary reasons. He still somehow managed to leave the airport and join a civilian tour of the demilitarized zone near the North Korean border.

As he left the tour group behind, he reportedly l

The Independent • 18 September 2023

‘Blind Side’ family deny cashing in on former NFL star Michael Tuohy

A family whose adoption of a boy who went on to become an NFL star – inspiring an Oscar-winning movie – have responded to his lawsuit against them, denying that they profited off his name.

Former NFL star Michael Oher, 39, claims that Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, both 63, never actually adopted him and that three months after his 18th birthday, they got him to sign a document to make the couple his conservators.

He says the movie made about them, The Blind Side, was a fabrication and that the co

The Independent • 28 September 2023

US took custody of Travis King following ‘intense diplomacy’ with North Korea

Private Travis King, the US Army soldier who fled to North Korea rather than board a US-bound plane for discipline by authorities at home, is back in American custody nearly two months after he broke away from a tour group in the demilitarised zone that separates North and South Korea and crossed the border into the North.

US officials on Wednesday said the errant American soldier had been turned over to American authorities in China, and has now been transported to a US military installation.

The Independent • 4 October 2023

City mourns after shows fatal stabbing of New York activist Ryan Carson

A well-known New York activist was stabbed to death in Brooklyn in the early hours of Monday morning.

Ryan Carson, 32, a community activist and Pratt Institute alum, was walking with his girlfriend back home at around 4am after they had just attended a wedding on Long Island.

In disturbing video footage obtained by The New York Post, the couple, both dressed in formal attire, were seen pausing to sit and speak at a bench bus stop as a stranger in a black hooded jumper strolled past them.

Up a

The Independent • 3 October 2023

Man lauded as MeToo ‘victim’ accused of killing and dismembering girlfriend

A man once hailed by Donald Trump’s administration as a “victim” of the #MeToo movement has been arrested for allegedly killing and dismembering the body of his girlfriend.

Joseph Carl Roberts, 42, has been accused of killing Rachel Elizabeth Imani Buckner after her body parts were discovered in a large trash bag wrapped up in duct tape, according to The San Francisco Chronicle.

After he told the news his life was almost destroyed by false sexual harassment allegations he garnered while at uni

The Independent • 3 October 2023

Trump shares bizarre court sketch of him sitting next to Jesus at civil fraud trial

Donald Trump shared a bizarre fake court sketch from the first day of his civil fraud trial – depicting himself sitting next to an unmistakable holy figure.

The doctored image, posted on his Truth Social account on Monday night, shows the former president flanked by Jesus Christ inside the Manhattan courthouse where a judge will rule what penalties Mr Trump should face for engaging in decades of business fraud.

“This is the most accurate court sketch of all time. Because nobody could have made

The Independent • 29 September 2023

Former teen beauty queen claims she was sex-trafficked and forced into porn

A former beauty pageant queen has made new allegations in a federal lawsuit claiming she was sex trafficked and raped on the orders of an infamous pornography producer.

Kirsty Althaus was the runner-up in the Miss Teen Colorado USA Pageant in 2013, but was forced to give up the title when she was found to be in online pornography videos, with her name in the title.

A copy of the lawsuit, filed on 8 September, was obtained by The Daily Beast, which said she made allegations against a series of