America

    Federal officials on Friday released a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy who was detained in Texas Oct. 25 after undergoing surgery because she was an undocumented immigrant traveling without her parents. Rosa Maria Hernandez was transported from a federally funded shelter in San Antonio, where she had been held for 10 days, to her family's home 150 miles south in the border city of Laredo. She was born in Mexico, but has lived in Texas since she was three months old. I am incredibly happy that she's going to be reunited with her mother and the rest of her family," said Andre Segura, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, which filed a lawsuit seeking her release this week. "The family is obviously very excited to have her back. Agustina Arroyo R...

    Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump may meet next week at an APEC summit in Vietnam, the Kremlin said on Friday, saying talks were underway about setting up such an encounter. Putin and Trump first met at a G20 summit in Hamburg in July when they discussed allegations of Russian meddling in the US presidential election, but agreed to focus on better ties rather than litigating the past. Relations between Moscow and Washington have soured further since, however. Trump in August grudgingly signed off on new sanctions against Russia, a move Moscow said ended hopes for better ties. Putin, dismayed by the sanctions, ordered Washington to more than halve its embassy and consular staff in Russia. But when asked if Putin and Trump might meet at an Asia-P...

    It’s impossible to know whether Osama bin Laden, sequestered in his Abbottabad hideout in Pakistan, ever turned on the DVD player and popped in a documentary he could instantly fact-check: Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden’s video-viewing habits were highlighted Wednesday by the CIA, which released a trove of documents and media six years after the raid that killed the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But for every insight from the release, there are dozens of head-scratchers, starting with bin Laden’s movie collection. The man once listed as No. 1 on the FBI’s most-wanted list had collected the kid movies Antz, Chicken Little and Cars. In addition to the more serious documentary on the international terrorist, there were BBC and National Geographi...

    Fake news has been named word of the year by Collins Dictionary and will be printed in the next edition. The phrase, which is often used by Donald Trump, has seen a 365 per cent rise in use since 2016. It is defined as "false, often sensational, information disseminated under the guise of news reporting". The President has regularly used the phrase to criticise certain media reports. He stated this week that the "fake news is working overtime" in connection to the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Collins also noted "Corbynmania" enjoyed a resurgence in 2017 thanks to general election coverage, after first emerging in 2015. Other politically relevant words were significant over the last 12 months, including "antifa", an abbreviation of "anti-fas...

    A Florida couple got an extra treat on Halloween a baby Frankenstein. Make that Oskar Gary Frankenstein, who made his entrance into the world four days late and after 14 hours of labour on Tuesday at Winter Park Memorial Hospital. Parents Kyle and Jessica Frankenstein tell news outlets that Baby Frankenstein weighed in at 6 pounds (3 kilograms), 9 ounces (255 grams) and is 20 inches (50 centimeters) long. The baby’s grandmother Jennifer Frankenstein tells WKMG the family is ‘super excited.’ She said Oskar is her first grandchild and the Frankenstein family’s first baby born on Halloween, although she does have a 13-year-old daughter who shares the same birthday as ‘Frankenstein’ author Mary Shelley. Winter Park is near Orlando in central Florida.

    Actress Rose McGowan speaks at the inaugural Women's Convention in Detroit. An arrest warrant has been obtained for McGowan for felony possession of a controlled substance. The… WASHINGTON — An arrest warrant has been obtained for actress Rose McGowan for felony possession of a controlled substance. The felony charge stems from a police investigation of personal belongings left behind on a United flight arriving at Washington Dulles International Airport on Jan. 20. Police say the items tested positive for narcotics. The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Police Department obtained the warrant on Feb. 1 Police say they've attempted to contact McGowan so she can appear in a Loudoun County, Virginia, court. The warrant has been entered into a national law enforcement...

    Donald Trump has unleashed a series of angry tweets amid reports that the first arrests in the inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election are imminent. The US President in a series of five tweets attacked claims of Trump/Russia collusion saying it does not exist. His tweets come after a CNN report that a federal grand jury in Washington has approved the first charges in the criminal investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller. The president wrote: Never seen such Republican ANGER & UNITY as I have concerning the lack of investigation on Clinton, mentioning supposed scandals including the Uranium to Russia deal, the 33,000 plus deleted emails, the Comey fix and so much more Instead they look at phony Trump/Russia collusion, which doesn't exist. The [...

    Donating a loved one’s body to science is for many people a comforting and altruistic act that makes meaning of a personal loss. For the many families unable to afford the cost of a funeral or cremation, it’s also a practical one, as the businesses that accept and arrange such donations typically offer to pay for cremation. Yet loose regulation in the for-profit body-donation industry means that the final destination for many of these remains are far different than the legitimate research many donors imagine, as a Reuters investigation this week and a Quartz investigation earlier this year found. A Reuters journalist was able to purchase the spine of a disabled young man whose impoverished parents believed that they were only donating small tissue samples from their deceas...

    Although the US state of North Carolina's anti-trans bathroom bill has been replaced with a less restrictive version which itself is currently under attack from a federal lawsuit its effects continue to be felt throughout the state, and many people's personal prejudices are imposing additional restrictions on trans people's behaviour. Emma Smith, a six-year-old trans girl in North Carolina, for instance, was banned not only from using the girls' bathroom at her school but also from hugging other students, The Daily Mail reports. She was told at first that she'd have to use the boys' bathroom, but because she was dressed as a girl, she worried about getting picked on or teased so a couple of times, she wet herself instead, her mum Amy Smith told The Daily Mail. She was even...

    Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire media mogul and former mayor of New York, has said Brexit is the single stupidest thing any country has ever done apart from the election of Donald Trump as US president. Bloomberg argued that it is really hard to understand why a country that was doing so well wanted to ruin it with the Brexit vote, in a series of outspoken remarks made at a technology conference in Boston a fortnight ago. At that event, Bloomberg, 75, also warned that some workers at the financial media company that bears his name were asking to leave the UK and US because they think the two countries no longer like immigrants and are no longer welcoming. The CEO was in London on Tuesday to open a new European headquarters for Bloomberg in the City, covering 1.3 hectare...