Billionaire Elon Musk’s role in Donald Trump’s second presidential administration is as an Oval Office employee and senior adviser to the president – and is not an employee of the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) and has no decision-making authority, the White House said in a court filing on Monday. According to a filing…

A Nevada judge on Tuesday postponed the murder trial of the only suspect ever charged in the 1996 killing of rap icon Tupac Shakur for nearly a year, saying she had little choice given new developments presented by his defense attorneys and the need to ensure a fair trial. The trial of Duane “Keffe D”…

Four alleged victims of sexual violence by Andrew Tate have urged the US to stay out of Romanian criminal proceedings, after reports the Trump administration had put pressure on authorities to lift travel restrictions against the self-styled “misogynist influencer”. The former professional kickboxer and his brother Tristan were arrested in 2022 and indicted in mid-2023,…

The UN human rights office accused the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels of killing three children in Bakavu, the Democratic Republic of the Congo city they captured last week, expressing alarm at human rights violations by the militia. “Our office has confirmed cases of summary execution of children by M23 after they entered the city of Bukavu…

Footage has emerged of the fiery plane crash at Toronto’s Pearson airport on Monday, showing the Delta Air Lines jet skidding along the runway and then flipping over, as a wing rips off and the tail is engulfed in flames. The crash, which occurred at Canada’s busiest airport, sent 21 people to the hospital, including…

The US postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, said on Tuesday he had asked the US Postal Service (USPS) governing board to identify his successor. In November, DeJoy warned that the post office, which has lost more than $100bn since 2007, must continue to cut costs or will remain on the path to either a “government bailout…

As campaign strategies go it was unorthodox and illegal: buy an AK-47, hire a pair of phony hitmen, and stage a fake assassination attempt against the mayor that would generate public sympathy and help him win a second term in power. That, Brazilian police claim, was the gameplan last October when, on the eve of…

Six soldiers in Guyana have been injured after armed men in neighboring Venezuela opened fire, in an attack expected to further heighten tensions between the two South American countries. Two of the soldiers are in critical condition following Monday’s attack, according to the head of Guyana’s army, the chief of staff Brig Gen Omar Khan,…

The head of the food division at the US Food and Drug Administration has quit in protest over sweeping staff cuts that he warns will hamper the agency’s ability to protect public health. Jim Jones, who joined the agency in September 2023, cited “indiscriminate” layoffs to 89 staff members, including key technical experts. In his…

A Republican congresswoman has proposed making Donald Trump’s birthday a public holiday, in an effort probably doomed to failure in Congress but obviously intended to curry favor with the president. Claudia Tenney, a representative from New York’s Finger Lakes region, introduced legislation on Friday aiming to combine the US annual commemoration of Flag Day with…