Around 8,000 flights were cancelled globally between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day as airlines experienced staff shortages due to COVID-19. Approximately 3,000 of the cancelled flights were in or out of the United States, where the highly transmissible Omicron COVID variant is causing a surge in infections, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware.com The website’s tally
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Hundreds of flights have been called off for a third day in a row in the US as the Omicron variant of COVID continues to spread. More than 720 commercial flights going into or out of the US were cancelled on Sunday, according to a tally on flight-tracking website FlightAware.com. This meant thousands of people
A surfer has been killed in an “apparent shark attack” off the central coast of California on Christmas Eve, authorities have said. The surfer, whose identity has not yet been released, was found in the water near Morro Rock, about 200 miles (320km) north of Los Angeles. in Los Angeles, California, at around 10.45am on
A White House Christmas event took an awkward turn on Friday when a caller dropped a vulgar anti-Biden slogan into a conversation with the US president. Joe Biden was hosting a traditional festive phone call with children tracking Father Christmas’ sleigh when their father told the president “Let’s go Brandon”. Mr Biden, apparently unaware of
A 14-year-old girl has been shot and killed in a Los Angeles clothing shop’s dressing room after police opened fire on an assault suspect. Police also shot and killed the suspect at the Burlington shop in the North Hollywood area of San Fernando Valley, police said. A man had been acting erratically and threatening to
A singer-songwriter has accused Chris Noth of groping her nearly 20 years ago in another allegation against the Sex And The City actor. Lisa Gentile, a New York musician, claimed Noth threatened to “ruin her career” if she told anyone about what happened. Detailing her accusation at a news conference, Gentile said she met Noth,
A former US police officer who said she mistakenly fired her gun instead of her Taser in the fatal shooting of a man has been found guilty of manslaughter. Kimberly Potter was convicted over the death of 20-year-old motorist Daunte Wright during a traffic stop in April in Minneapolis. Potter, 49, was found guilty of
Ghislaine Maxwell will spend her 60th birthday in prison after the jury deliberating her fate was sent home for Christmas. The former girlfriend of disgraced billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein turns 60 this Saturday, 25 December, with the jury not expected to return until next Monday. Jurors ended their second full day of deliberations into the
The US government is buying 500 million at-home rapid COVID tests that Americans will be able to order online for free starting in January, Joe Biden says. The president also announced that more testing sites will be set up. And 1,000 military medical personnel will be deployed as part of efforts to help hospitals overwhelmed
A group of missionaries, who trekked for up to 10 miles by moonlight with a baby and a toddler to escape their kidnappers in Haiti, are being reunited with their families in America. The 12 people, from Christian Aid Ministries, a US-based church, took their chance to slip past guards on 15 December and used
Donald Trump was booed by some of his supporters as he admitted to having received a COVID-19 booster jab. The former US president heckled by audience members in Dallas on Sunday when he admitted he had received a another dose. It comes as US officials and scientists call on the population to get vaccinated amid
Omicron is now the dominant form of coronavirus in the US and made up 73% of new cases last week, according to federal health officials. It represents a near six-fold increase in the variant’s share of infections in just one week. In some areas Omicron is even more dominant, responsible for an estimated 90% of
Footage of Jeffrey Epstein’s mansion in Florida has been shown in court as the closing arguments of Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial take place. The video of the late paedophile’s Palm Beach estate was shown as evidence in Maxwell’s federal sex-trafficking hearing. Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player 1:56 Inside Epstein’s Florida mansion
Dr Anthony Fauci says Omicron is “raging around the world” as he warned of the increased risk posed to unvaccinated people. President Joe Biden’s chief medical officer said the new variant has an “extraordinary capability” for transmission. He called on Americans to get their vaccines, take tests and wear face masks in a bid to
Joe Biden has visited the graves of his first wife and infant daughter, as he marks 49 years since they were killed in a car crash. The US president visited St Joseph on the Brandywine Roman Catholic Church in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware on Saturday with First Lady Jill Biden and daughter Ashley. Mr
An 18-year-old woman and a 13-year-old boy managed to escape a burning building in New York by climbing out a window and scaling down a pipe, video footage has shown. The fire broke out on the fourth floor of an apartment block, located in Avenue D, in the East Village area of Manhattan, at around
Ghislaine Maxwell’s legal team at her trial has tried to discredit her accusers by suggesting there were discrepancies between the statements they gave to the FBI and what they have said in court. Four women, testifying for the prosecution, allege Maxwell recruited and groomed them when they were teenagers for sexual abuse by her ex-boyfriend
A man was kicked off a flight in the US for wearing women’s underwear as a face mask. In footage taken by another passenger and shared widely online, Adam Jenne can be seen wearing a pink thong over his face as he sits in his seat before the flight from Fort Lauderdale to Washington took
Partial human remains found nearly 40 years ago in a bin bag have been confirmed as those of Frank Little Jr – a former songwriter and guitarist for R&B group The O’Jays. The bag was found on 18 February, 1982, behind a now-closed business in Twinsburg, about 25 miles southeast of Cleveland. But it wasn’t
When Duane “Yellow Feather” Shepard was a child, his mother would point out Bruce’s Beach and tell him: “That used to be our people’s land.” Decades later that small slice of land, nestled next to the Pacific Ocean in the glittering city of Manhattan Beach in California, is finally being returned to his family’s ownership.