America

    The U.S. military says it intercepted two Russian bombers in international airspace off Alaska's coast. Navy Commander Gary Ross, a Pentagon spokesman, says a pair of F-22 Raptor aircraft intercepted the Russian TU-95 Bear bombers on Monday. Ross says the intercept was safe and professional. North American Aerospace Defense Command monitors air approaches to North America and defends the airspace. Fox News said Tuesday the Russian planes flew within 100 miles (160 kilometers) of Alaska's Kodiak Island. It said the American jets escorted the Russian bombers for 12 minutes. The bombers then flew back to eastern Russia.

    President Trump. When Michael Elliott died, the last voice he heard was that of his ex-wife, his best friend. In a short phone conversation moments before Elliott took his last breath, she told him what he wanted to hear. I told him that everything's going to be all right, Teresa Elliott told The Washington Post. And Donald Trump has been impeached. Michael Elliott died peacefully, surrounded by friends and neighbors in his home in a suburb outside of Portland, Ore., according to an obituary published in the Oregonian. Teresa Elliott, who lives in Texas, said she couldn't make it to Oregon in time. So on April 6, one of Michael Elliott's friends called her and told her that he was about to die. The two talked as someone held up the phone to the dying man's ear. Afterward, ...

    US President Donald Trump called Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan to congratulate him on winning a referendum expanding his authority, sources in Erdogan’s palace said on Monday. Turkey voted on Sunday to switch to a presidential system, greatly increasing Erdogan’s powers. Unofficial results, which the opposition said it would challenge, showed a narrow victory for him with 51.4 per cent of votes cast in favour. The constitutional reforms are set to grant more powers to Erdogan, effecting a changeover from parliamentary to the presidential form of government in Turkey. The amendments to the constitution are likely to allow him to hold office for two more terms until 2029. According to a White House statement, Trump spoke on Monday with Erdogan, discussing the developmen...

    Are you, an American citizen, worried about what your hard-earned tax dollars are actually paying for? Are you, a concerned global citizen, worried about the state of American politics? ...Is Trump at Mar-a-Lago? Possibly, most definitely and YES. Helpfully, a new genius website, istrumpatmaralago.org, has been founded allowing you to keep track of President Trump's regular Florida trips. The site also indicates an estimate on how much money has been spent on trips so far - $25 million - and how that money could have been better spent (e.g. public school funding, Medicaid), while he proposes dramatic budget cuts to higher education and homelessness aid. Also, you can find out just how many weekends of the presidency Trump has spent messing around on the golf course (13). I...

    The official investigation into relations between Donald Trump and Russia now has specific, concrete and corroborative evidence of collusion, it has been reported. New evidence proves discussions took place between people in the Trump campaign and agents of [Russian] influence relating to the use of hacked material, a source allegedly told the Guardian. The developments come as it has emerged that Britain’s spy agencies were among the first to alert their American counterparts to contact between members of Mr Trump’s campaign team and Russian intelligence operatives. British and other European intelligence agencies first intercepted suspicious “interactions” between people associated with the US President and Russian officials in 2015 as part of routine surveillance of Rus...

    As many as 36 suspected Islamic State militants were killed in Afghanistan when the United States dropped "the mother of all bombs," its largest non-nuclear device ever unleashed in combat, the Afghan defense ministry said on Friday. Thursday's strike came as U.S. President Donald Trump dispatches his first high-level delegation to Kabul, amid uncertainty about his plans for the nearly 9,000 American troops stationed in Afghanistan. The deaths have not been independently verified, but ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri said no civilians were harmed in the massive blast that targeted a network of caves and tunnels. No civilian has been hurt and only the base, which Daesh used to launch attacks in other parts of the province, was destroyed, Waziri said in a statement. He was u...

    United Airlines staff forced a frail 94-year-old grandma to leave her £2,800 Business Class seat and sit in discomfort in Economy, her family have claimed. Paz Orquiza was travelling from Los Angeles back to Melbourne, Australia, after visiting relatives. Her granddaughter Marianne Santos Aguilar said Mrs Orquiza has a number of disabilities including severe arthritis . Her relatives had all chipped in to buy her a Business class seat with United in the hope of making the 16-hour journey more comfortable. But Ms Aguilar claims her grandma was left "in tears" due to her treatment by United staff. She claimed staff would not allow Mrs Orquiza's daughter Rose, who was also on the flight in Economy class, to help her with tasks such as reclining her seat or opening her food un...

    Police officers stand guard near a crime scene where the body of a man, who witnesses said was tossed from a plane, landed on a hospital roof in Culiacan, in Mexico's northern Sinaloa state April 12, 2017 The body of a man, who witnesses said was tossed from a plane, landed on a hospital roof in Mexico's northern Sinaloa state on Wednesday, according to a public health service official in the region, which is home to notorious drug traffickers. The body landed on the roof of an IMSS hospital in the town of Eldorado, around 7:30 a.m. local time, said the official, who was not authorized to give his name. Witnesses standing outside the health centre reported a plane flying low over the hospital and a person thrown out, the health official said. Later on Wednesday, Sinaloa's ...

    The Daily Mail will pay damages to settle a libel claim brought against it by the US first lady Melania Trump over false claims about her work as a professional model. An agreed statement was read out to Mr Justice Nicol in court 14 of the royal courts of justice on behalf of both parties. The newspaper will pay Trump damages, but the amount was not disclosed. The statement said the article published in a double page spread last summer included false and defamatory claims about [Mrs Trump] which questioned the nature of her work as a professional model and republished allegations that she provides services beyond simply modelling. The statement, read out by solicitor John Kelly, of the law firm Harbottle and Lewis, added: “The article included statements that Mrs Trump den...

    The CEO of United Airlines apologised again amid a global uproar sparked when a passenger was dragged screaming from his seat on a flight that, it turns out, wasn't even overbooked. I continue to be disturbed by what happened on this flight, and I deeply apologise to the customer forcibly removed and to all the customers aboard, CEO Oscar Munoz said in a statement. No one should ever be mistreated this way. United has been under siege since videos of Sunday night's violent confrontation on the plane at Chicago's O'Hare Airport went viral, drawing hundreds of millions of views around the world. Social media outrage rained down on the Chicago-based airline. United spokesman Jonathan Guerin said Tuesday that all 70 seats on United Express Flight 3411 were filled, but the plan...