Police searching for man who allegedly sexually abused corpse on New York subway

Video captured one person robbing corpse on idling train before another person robbed and sexually assaulted it

A man sexually violated a corpse on a New York City subway train after stealing from the body, becoming the second of two people to rob that particular dead person, authorities said recently.

One of the more grotesque US crime stories of late unfolded on a southbound R train near the Whitehall Street station in Manhattan at about 12.20am on Wednesday, when “an unidentified individual had sexual contact with an unconscious and unresponsive adult male” in plain view of surveillance cameras, according to a police statement.

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‘I’m super worried’: fewer UK tourists visiting US amid Trump’s policies and rhetoric

Number of Brits crossing Atlantic down 14.3% from 2024 – and the travel industry fears decline could continue

After backpacker Rebecca Burke was arrested and locked up for nearly three weeks by US immigration ­officials in February, she started urging people not to travel to America.

Britons seem to have listened: UK residents visiting the US were down 14.3% in March compared with the same month in 2024, official figures show.

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‘A new golden age’: how rightwing media stuck by Trump as global markets collapsed

Trump’s tariffs were sometimes played down, sometimes cheered but rarely seriously questioned by the right

While Donald Trump recently instituted and paused hefty tariffs, sparking a trade war and chaos in financial markets, most of the country’s conservative media either applauded the US president or critiqued the policy but not the person behind it, according to journalists and observers of conservative media.

Meanwhile, economists, business leaders, Democrats and even some Republicans warned that the tariffs, which prompted the largest American stock market drop since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, could cause a recession.

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Iran and US agree to continue nuclear talks after first indirect round

Iranian foreign minister hails ‘calm and respectful environment’ to mediated talks in Oman

Iran and the US completed a successful opening round of indirect talks in Oman designed to prevent the weaponisation of Iran’s nuclear programme. In a sign the talks over a joint agenda had gone well, they agreed to meet again on 19 April.

A breakdown would have come if Donald Trump had demanded the complete dismantling of Iran’s civil nuclear programme, something that Iran is not prepared to contemplate. Iran insists it is pursuing only a civil nuclear programme, but Donald Trump took the US out of the previous nuclear deal claiming Tehran’s regime was seeking a nuclear weapon.

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‘Completely out of touch’: golf and dinners for ‘king’ Trump as economy melts down

Casual attitude as markets fall suggests man detached from anxieties of ordinary voters – and surrounded by yes men

After lighting a fuse under global financial markets, Donald Trump stepped back – all the way to a Florida golf course. A week later, having just caved to pressure to ease his trade tariffs, the US president defended the retreat while hosting racing car champions at the White House.

Trump had spent the time in between golfing, dining with donors and making insouciant declarations such as “this is a great time to get rich”, even as the US economy melted down.

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Tuberculosis could end if there’s more US public health funding, experts say

Resurgence could be on horizon as outbreaks pick up speed in US and abroad amid public health program cuts

As tuberculosis outbreaks pick up speed in the US and abroad amid deep cuts in funding for local, state and international public health programs, a resurgence of the deadliest infectious disease – including drug-resistant tuberculosis – could be on the horizon.

Increasing funding for public health responses could end tuberculosis (TB) altogether, says James Brookes, an IT specialist from Idaho, who told this to his representatives in Congress on Wednesday.

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Panama opposition party accuses US of ‘camouflaged invasion’

Discontent with government handling of diplomatic crisis rises as Pete Hegseth says US troops moved to country

Panamanian opposition politicians have accused the US of launching a “camouflaged invasion” of the country, amid simmering discontent over the government’s handling of the diplomatic crisis.

After a three-day visit by the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump appeared to confirm that US military personnel had been deployed to the Central American country on Thursday, telling reporters: “We’ve moved a lot of troops to Panama.”

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Iran and US to meet for nuclear talks but little obvious prospect of success

Tehran’s nuclear program at stake in Oman after Trump’s surprise announcement – can a breakthrough be reached?

Historical metaphor refers to them as “Nixon in China” moments: diplomatic encounters where leaders representing political systems implacably opposed to each other overcome their mistrust to achieve unexpected breakthroughs.

Yet few meetings can have held less obvious prospect of the success achieved by President Richard Nixon’s historic 1972 visit to Beijing than that scheduled to take place in Oman on Saturday between representatives of the United States and Iran.

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Dealmaking genius or boy who cried wolf? Trump’s trade retreat sows doubts

Nothing is certain under this president – as seen in the inconsistent implementation of tariffs. And it has a longer-term economic cost

Minutes after Donald Trump unveiled a climbdown on tariffs, softening an extraordinary US attack on trade from much of the world, his press secretary scolded reporters at the White House.

“Many of you in the media clearly missed The Art of the Deal,” said Karoline Leavitt, referring to the 1987 bestseller which laid the foundations of the president’s reputation as a consummate dealmaker.

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Did Trump’s tariffs kill economic populism?

Lasting damage has been done not only to Trump’s political credibility but to globalisation as a system

At the beginning of this helter-skelter week, Downing Street was declaring globalisation not only dead but a failure. Now, only five trading days later, the autopsy is still under way but the victim may instead be economic populism, strangled by Wall Street, the citadel of globalisation. Donald Trump’s so-called liberation day may in fact have been the anti-globalist’s entombment day.

In an effort to deny even a tactical retreat, Trump’s aides insist the White House goal all along was not to weaken globalism, or even to protect the US economy with tariffs, but instead to get into a negotiation to lower tariffs around the world and to punish China. As cover stories go, it is hardly credible, partly because the tariffs were repeatedly lauded by Trump as a macroeconomic revenue-raising measure, or a means to bolster US manufacturing.

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Judge allows resentencing hearings for Menedez brothers to continue

Erik and Lyle Menendez were convicted of parents’ murders at Beverly Hills home in 1989

A judge has decided the resentencing hearings for Erik and Lyle Menendez, who were convicted of murdering their parents, can continue despite a new Los Angeles district attorney opposing their release after 30 years behind bars.

The brothers appeared in court over Zoom on Friday for the proceedings.

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Documents reveal Trump’s plan to gut funding for Nasa and climate science

Critics say Nasa faces ‘extinction-level event’ with budget plan, with climate research funding also to be slashed

Donald Trump shows no signs of easing his assault on climate science as plans of more sweeping cuts to key US research centers surfaced on Friday.

The administration is planning to slash budgets at both the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (Noaa) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa), according to internal budget documents, taking aim specifically at programs used to study impacts from the climate crisis.

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Mikal Mahdi killed by firing squad as South Carolina pushes execution spree

Mahdi, who killed an officer in 2004, endured torture in his childhood and argued he was denied a fair trial

A prison firing squad in South Carolina executed Mikal Mahdi on Friday, the second recent death row killing in the state by authorized gunfire.

Mahdi, 42, was shot dead by corrections employees inside the execution chamber, where authorities have carried out a rapid spree of killings as South Carolina aggressively revives capital punishment.

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Immigration agents turned away after trying to enter LA elementary schools

School district says DHS agents, seeking five students in first through sixth grades, were barred from entering

Immigration officials attempted to enter two Los Angeles elementary schools this week, but were turned away by school administrators. The incident appears to be the Trump administration’s first attempt to enter the city’s public schools since amending regulations to allow immigration agents to enter “sensitive areas” such as schools.

At a Thursday press conference, the Los Angeles unified school district superintendent, Alberto Carvalho, confirmed that agents from the Department of Homeland Security were seeking five students in first through sixth grades.

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US House panel drops inquiry into Northwestern’s law school clinics

Move comes after professors sued and alleged investigation violated their constitutional free speech rights

The US House education and workforce committee withdrew an investigation into Northwestern University’s law school clinics after professors there sued and alleged that the inquiry violated their constitutional free speech rights.

The professors secured what amounted to a legal victory for them on Thursday, when the House committee withdrew its investigative requests with respect to the university and its law school’s Bluhm Legal Clinic program on Thursday.

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Homeland security apparently used British man’s tattoo to identify alleged gang members

‘Average man from Derbyshire’ shocked to find photo of tattoo celebrating child’s birth was used to deport migrants

A British man was shocked to discover that a photo of his tattoo was included in a US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) document used to identify alleged members of a notorious Venezuelan criminal gang, Tren de Aragua (TdA).

Earlier this week, 44-year-old Pete Belton, who lives in the English county of Derbyshire, told the BBC that he was stunned to find a photo of his forearm tattoo featured in a DHS document among nine images of tattoos intended to assist in “detecting and identifying” TdA members.

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Mexico to send water to Texas farmers as US treaty threat grows

Mexico’s failure to keep up 81-year-old water-sharing treaty has sparked a diplomatic spat with the US

Mexico will make an immediate water delivery to Texas farmers to help make up its shortfall under a treaty that has strained US relations and prompted tariff threats by Donald Trump, said Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, on Friday.

Mexico is looking for alternatives to comply with the 81-year-old water-sharing treaty with the US, Sheinbaum said in her regular news conference. A proposal had already been sent to US officials, she said.

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Tesla stops taking orders in China for two models imported from US

Carmaker removes ‘order now’ buttons for Model S saloon and Model X SUV on its Chinese website amid tariffs war

Tesla has stopped taking orders in China for two models it previously imported from the US, as companies scramble to adapt to prohibitive tariffs imposed in Donald Trump’s trade war.

The manufacturer, run by Trump’s close ally Elon Musk, removed “order now” buttons on its Chinese website for its Model S saloon and Model X sports utility vehicle.

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Trump administration ordered to help return man wrongly deported to El Salvador – US politics live

Supreme court upholds earlier order that Kilmar Abrego Garcia should be released after being improperly sent to prison

The Mississippi library commission, which offers services such as specialized research assistance to libraries in the state, has ordered the deletion of two research collections: the race relations database and the gender studies database. The collections were stored in what’s called the Magnolia database, which is used by publicly funded schools, libraries, universities and state agencies in Mississippi.

The commission’s executive director, Hulen Bivins, confirmed the deletion to the Guardian, and said:

We may lose a lot of materials.

All of the states, we are in dire shape. We have had a reconsideration of everything with regard to what Doge [is doing].”

Commanders are expected to adhere to the highest standards of conduct, especially as it relates to remaining nonpartisan in the performance of their duties.”

Our message to Denmark is very simple: you have not done a good job by the people of Greenland. You have under-invested in the people of Greenland and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this incredible, beautiful land mass.”

I do not presume to understand current politics, but what I do know is the concerns of the US administration discussed by vice-president Vance on Friday are not reflective of Pituffik space base.”

Actions to undermine the chain of command or to subvert President Trump’s agenda will not be tolerated at the Department of Defense.”

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Head of US military base in Greenland fired after JD Vance visit

Col Susannah Meyers removed amid reports she distanced base from Vance’s criticism of Denmark’s oversight of territory

Europe live – latest updates

The head of the US military base in Greenland has been fired for criticising Washington’s agenda for the Arctic island after JD Vance visited two weeks ago.

Col Susannah Meyers, who had served as commander of the Pituffik space base since July, was removed amid reports she had distanced herself and the base from the US vice-president’s criticism of Denmark and its oversight of the territory.

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