America

    Trump baby blimp will fly over London during the president's visit A giant balloon dubbed Trump baby has been given the green light to fly near parliament during the president's UK visit. London mayor Sadiq Khan's Greater London Authority has approved a request for the flight after thousands signed a petition and a crowdfunding campaign raised more than £16,000 to get the six-metre inflatable off the ground. Strict rules are in place for the flight from Parliament Square Gardens, with the balloon being tethered to the ground and restricted from floating higher than 30m (98ft). It will fly between 9.30am and 11.30am on Friday 13 July coinciding with the president's visit to the UK and a Stop Trump march in central London. A spokesperson for the Mayor of London said...

    A 92-year-old woman has been charged with the murder of her son after allegedly telling him you took my life, so I'm taking yours over his decision to place her in a care home. Anna Mae Blessing is accused of shooting her 72-year-old son during an argument at their home in Maricopa County, Phoenix, Arizona. Police were called to the property at around 10am on Monday night by the son’s girlfriend, who reportedly disarmed Blessing in a struggle after the incident. According to the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, Blessing said she had been thinking about her son’s plan to place her in a home for a number of days prior. She told detectives she then took two pistols and concealed them in the pockets of her robe before confronting her son in his bedroom. The nonagena...

    WhatsApp group chats can be incredibly useful the perfect tool for organizing social events, or keeping up to date with news from places like your children’s school. But, everyone knows that groups can quickly descend into chaos as everyone starts, well, chatting with one another. That’s why WhatsApp is introducing a new option for group chats that lets only approved administrators send messages. It’s a simple change, but one that will make group chats more functional and appealing for certain use-cases. WhatsApp obviously knows group chats are a big part of its appeal, and has been slowly adding more features. It recently introduced group descriptions as well as anti-spam tools and a catch-up feature that shows users replies and mentions. All this makes the Fac...

    She’s a mother of seven who married an Islamic State fighter and was captured in Syria, but Madina was lucky. She is a Chechen, and that means she got to come home. Last November, the 36-year-old was pregnant, her small children jumpy at the slightest noise, when they were packed onto a plane and sent from Syria to Grozny, the capital of Russia’s mainly Muslim republic of Chechnya. Taking the family out of Syria was an act of clemency on the part of Chechen authorities, who say it is their duty to bring back the women and children stranded in Islamic State territory after their insurgent husbands or fathers have been imprisoned or died. The Chechen government says if we take back the women and children, and give them the best things, treat them the best way we can,...

    US voters remain deeply skeptical of political polling. But Trump’s approval rating so far has been incredibly stable Six hundred days after the 2016 election, many US voters remain deeply skeptical of, if not hostile to, political polling. Thousands march against Trump and family separations policy The national polls in 2016 were actually fairly accurate: Hillary Clinton was supposed to win the popular vote by about three points and she ended up winning by two. But election models portraying Clinton as a sure thing left her supporters feeling betrayed when, thanks to the electoral college, the presidency fell to Donald Trump. For those voters today, mistrust of surveys can take on an almost spiritual vehemence. Yet while Americans who feel that Trump is harmin...

    The U.S. government said in a court filing on Friday that it has the right to detain children and parents caught crossing the U.S. border illegally for the duration of their immigration proceedings. A 1997 court settlement known as the Flores agreement has generally been interpreted to require the Department of Homeland Security to release illegal immigrant children from custody after 20 days. That case, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union in San Diego, challenged the recent government policy of separating families in order to detain parents for as long as necessary under President Donald Trump's "zero-tolerance" policy. Since that policy was implemented in May, families have been routinely separated after apprehension. Some 2,000 separated children are c...

    Venezuela's inflation rate has hit a new high, according to university research, with consumer prices in the crisis-ridden country rising by more than 40,000% annually for the first time on record. Steve H. Hanke, an applied economics professor at Johns Hopkins University, told Business Insider on Friday that annual inflation in the country has risen as high as 41,838%. Hanke, who calculated the inflation figure, has tracked prices in the country for more than two decades. Venezuela's government has largely stopped reporting economic data, including internal measures of inflation. The Central Bank of Venezuela, which did not immediately respond to request for comment, has not independently released inflation figures in at least a year. Venezuelan President Nicolas ...

    British intelligence agencies were involved in the torture and kidnap of terrorism suspects after 9/11, according to two reports by the parliamentary intelligence and security committee. The reports published on Thursday amount to one of the most damning indictments ever of UK intelligence, revealing links to torture and rendition were much more widespread than previously reported. While there was no evidence of officers directly carrying out physical mistreatment of detainees, the reports say the overseas agency MI6 and the domestic service MI5 were involved in hundreds of torture cases and scores of rendition cases. The committee says the agencies were aware at an early point of the mistreatment of detainees by the US and others. There were two cases in which UK ...

    President Trump said the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the administration's travel ban was a tremendous victory for the country and constitution after Justices ruled 5-4 in the White House's favor. The court found on Tuesday that the order is squarely within the scope of Presidential authority. Today's supreme court ruling is a tremendous success, a tremendous victory for the American people, and for our Constitution," Mr. Trump said. We have to be tough and we have to be safe, we have to be secure, he added, noting at a minimum we have to make sure we vet people coming into our country. When asked if he would keep the travel ban in place considering the court's latest ruling, the president said of course, what do you think, I wouldn't go ahead with it? He ad...

    Take a look at the two lists below. Which one do you think represents the rankings of the most dangerous countries in the world? The lists come from Gallup’s latest Global Law and Order report which surveyed residents in 142 countries on two measures: Their perception of safety Their first-hand experience with crime The pollster inquired about residents’ perception of safety by asking whether they “feel safe walking alone at night.” Singaporeans felt the most secure, with 94% saying so. Venezuelans had the lowest sense of safety with only 17% responding positively. List A reflects the countries where the fewest residents feel secure. Focusing on residents’ experiences with crime, one question asked whether the respondent had been assaulted within the co...