R&B singer D4vd used chainsaws he bought from Amazon to cut up the body of the teenage girl he murdered and left to rot in the trunk of his Tesla, prosecution documents claimed on Wednesday. The internet breakout star killed Celeste Rivas Hernandez because she threatened to reveal their long-standing and illegal sexual relationship, which began when she was just 13, charging papers allege. He then hacked up her corpse, using a plastic paddling pool to contain the blood, and stuffed it into bags...

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the United States is considering reducing the number of its troops in Germany, amid a row with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz over the Iran war. “The United States is studying and reviewing the possible reduction of Troops in Germany, with a determination to be made over the next short period of time,” Trump said on social media. The United States had more than 35,000 troops in Germany in 2024, according to the Congressional Research Service,...

The extraordinary clash at the Federal Reserve between Jerome Powell and Donald Trump entered new territory on Wednesday when the outgoing US central bank chairman said he would remain on as a governor – and the president lashed him with another insult. Powell said that while his term at the head of the Fed was ending May 15, he would exercise his right to remain on the board “for a period of time to be determined”. Powell appeared concerned about the Fed maintaining its independence in the face...

The US Supreme Court on Wednesday sharply limited the use of race in drawing electoral districts, in a decision that could reshape congressional maps nationwide and boost Republican prospects ahead of midterm elections. In a 6-3 ruling split along ideological lines, the conservative-dominated court struck down a map that creates a second majority-black district in Louisiana, finding it amounted to an unconstitutional racial gerrymander despite being drawn to comply with the 1965 Voting Rights...

US President Donald Trump said that a US naval blockade against Iran could last months, leading oil prices to spike to their highest level in more than four years which held into Thursday. With diplomacy between Iran and the United States at a standstill after false starts, Trump spoke by phone Wednesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who warned him of “damaging consequences” if the United States and Israel resume their war on Iran. Meeting oil executives, Trump contended that the...

Sweden’s government said on Wednesday it planned to introduce legislation requiring social media platforms like TikTok and Snapchat to take down criminal gangs’ ‘murder adverts’ within an hour or face hefty fines. Criminal gangs active in Sweden increasingly use social media to recruit people to commit murders and other violent acts amid a surge in “crime as a service”. The recruits are often children under the age of 15, Sweden’s age of criminal responsibility, meaning the youngsters cannot be...

The pace of tropical forest destruction slowed in 2025 after record losses the year before but remained at worrying levels equivalent to 11 football fields per minute, researchers said Wednesday. The world lost 4.3 million hectares (10.6 million acres) of tropical primary rainforest last year, down 36 per cent from 2024, said researchers from the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the University of Maryland. “A drop of this scale in a single year is encouraging – it shows what decisive...

The widespread use of rape and other sexual violence as a weapon of war in Sudan has spurred a massive mental health crisis, United Nations agencies and local aid groups warned. The Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been locked in a brutal conflict since April 2023 that has killed tens of thousands and displaced around 11 million people. Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières last month said at least 3,396 survivors of sexual violence – nearly all of them women...

UK King Charles gave US President Donald Trump a taste of his own medicine at a White House state dinner on Tuesday when he joked that without the British, Americans would be speaking French. As the heads of state traded jokes during their dinner toasts, Charles referenced previous comments by Trump aimed at European allies he accuses of freeloading on defence since World War II. “You recently commented, Mr President, that if it were not for the United States, European countries would be...

An image of Donald Trump will soon appear in some US passports, officials said on Tuesday, shattering another norm as the president aggressively puts his personal stamp on government institutions. There were few precedents anywhere in the world, let alone in a democracy, of displaying sitting leaders’ pictures in passports, and Trump would be the first sitting US president featured in Americans’ travel documents. The State Department said it would offer the limited-edition passport to mark this...

Former FBI director James Comey has been indicted for threatening the life of Donald Trump, officials said on Tuesday, five months after a previous case against the outspoken critic of the US president was thrown out. The indictment by a grand jury in North Carolina stems from an Instagram post the 65-year-old Comey made in May last year that showed the numbers “86 47” spelled out in seashells. Trump alleged in an interview with Fox News at the time that “86” was slang for kill and “47” was a...

Embattled UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Tuesday survived a bid by opposition politicians to subject him to a parliamentary probe over his controversial appointment of Peter Mandelson as envoy to the US. Members of parliament voted against referring Starmer to a committee to consider if he misled parliament over giving Mandelson, an ex-associate of late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the plum diplomatic post. It was the latest development in an unrelenting scandal that has plagued Starmer’s...