Billy Allison, 36, pleads not guilty over Matthew O’Gara’s death following alleged assault in Lichfield
A man accused of murdering a businessman after an alleged assault outside a bar in Staffordshire has pleaded not guilty.
Billy Allison, 36, a member of the flag-raising group Raise the Colours, appeared at Stafford crown court on Tuesday and entered not guilty pleas to the murder of Matthew O’Gara and to causing grievous bodily harm with intent to a second alleged victim.
Nearly a year after Charlie Kirk was shot dead at a Utah university, a judge on Tuesday is expected to rule on whether the Utah man accused of killing the conservative activist will stand trial and whether he should face the death penalty.
At a 10am hearing in Provo, Utah, judge Tony Graf will decide whether there is sufficient evidence to try Tyler Robinson, 23, and allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty for the murder of one of the US right’s most prominent figures.
Meteorologists say average mean temperature of 16.5C was made 130 times more likely by climate crisis
This year’s summer was the UK’s hottest on record, according to provisional data, and the Met Office said the season’s mean temperature was made 130 times more likely by the climate crisis.
Record-breaking and back-to-back heatwaves have scorched much of Europe. In England, temperatures peaked at 38.1C (100.1F) at Kew Gardens in London on 13 August, and June had already been confirmed as the country’s hottest since records began in 1884. Scientists have said these heatwaves are only possible because of the climate crisis driven by burning fossil fuels.
Campaigners say some care boards in England flouting their legal duty, resulting in ‘cruel’ postcode lottery
Seriously ill children are being denied the chance to die at home because the NHS in many parts of England is flouting its legal duty to provide the care needed to make that happen, critics say.
The widespread failure to provide at-home end-of-life care is forcing children who want to die at home to instead do so in hospital. Campaigners have described it as “cruel”.
Spectacular Villa Aurora, which was nearly destroyed in last year’s fires, leading the recovery as Pacific Palisades emerges from a dark chapter
A hillside villa that served as a cultural hub for German writers and artists fleeing the Nazis and narrowly escaped destruction in last year’s Los Angeles wildfires reopened its doors to the public this weekend, marking the latest milestone in the city’s slow recovery from one of the darkest chapters in its history.
Hundreds of friends of the Villa Aurora, a 1920s Spanish Mediterranean house that has taken on a second life as a cultural center with a fierce commitment to artistic freedom, international dialogue and democracy, crowded into the house on Sunday to mark the resumption of speaker events and artistic residencies.
PEN America study details verbal and physical threats to librarians, funding cuts and proliferation of book bans
Public libraries in the US are “at breaking point” because of an onslaught of political interference, harassment and ideological censorship, a new report published on Tuesday said.
Book bans, cancelled story hours, attacks on librarians, funding cuts and the undoing of libraries’ independent governance are examined by the free expression advocacy group PEN America in its study called Out of Circulation: Expanding Censorship in Public Libraries.
Nearly a year after Charlie Kirk was shot dead at a Utah university, a judge on Tuesday is expected to rule on whether the Utah man accused of killing the conservative activist will stand trial and whether he should face the death penalty.
At a 10 am hearing in Provo, Utah, judge Tony Graf will decide whether there is sufficient evidence to try Tyler Robinson, 23, and allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty for the murder of one of the US right’s most prominent figures.
Meteorologists say average mean temperature of 16.5C was made 130 times more likely by climate crisis
This year’s summer was the UK’s hottest on record, according to provisional Met Office data, with the season’s mean temperature made 130 times more likely as a result of the climate crisis.
The summer saw record-breaking and back-to-back heatwaves scorch much of Europe. In England, temperatures peaked at 38.1C (100.1F) at Kew Gardens in London on 13 August, with June already confirmed as the country’s hottest since records began in 1884. Scientists have said these heatwaves are only possible because of the climate crisis driven by burning fossil fuels.
Spectacular Villa Aurora, which was nearly destroyed in last year’s fires, leading the recovery as Pacific Palisades emerges from a dark chapter
A hillside villa that served as a cultural hub for German writers and artists fleeing the Nazis and narrowly escaped destruction in last year’s Los Angeles wildfires reopened its doors to the public this weekend, marking the latest milestone in the city’s slow recovery from one of the darkest chapters in its history.
Hundreds of friends of the Villa Aurora, a 1920s Spanish Mediterranean house that has taken on a second life as a cultural center with a fierce commitment to artistic freedom, international dialogue and democracy, crowded into the house on Sunday to mark the resumption of speaker events and artistic residencies.
Thirty years after the killing of Tupac Shakur, conspiracy theories and rumors about the perpetrator’s identity, one man has now been held criminally responsible for the rap icon’s death.
A Las Vegas jury convicted Duane “Keffe D” Davis, a 63-year-old former South Side Compton Crips gang leader, of murder for his role in the drive-by shooting. During the two-week-long trial, prosecutors argued Davis was the “on-the-ground, on-site commander of the effort to kill Tupac” and had sought revenge after the musician was involved in a fight with his nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson.
Claims that Trump and Rubio are trying to influence result have parallels with CIA intervention 64 years ago
The year was 1962 and the Kennedy administration was desperate to swing Brazil’s congressional elections against its leftwing president, João Goulart, as a way of countering the supposed communist threat sweeping a region the US considered its back yard.
Historians say that in the lead-up to the vote, the CIA and the Department of State secretly channelled millions of dollars to opposition candidates and a group tasked with spreading rightwing propaganda and stirring up unrest.
Artist rose to prominence in 2018 by painting his eponymous tag in public spots across southern England
The street artist Helch, known for murals and tags across England, has died, his gallery has said.
He rose to prominence in 2018 by painting his eponymous tag in capital letters across a string of public spots in London as well as bridges on the M4, M1 and M25.
First big storm of season could reach hurricane force and is expected to bring potentially heavy rains and flooding
Tropical Storm Edouard headed toward the US Gulf coast early on Tuesday and was expected to strengthen significantly – possibly reaching hurricane force –before bringing potentially heavy rains and flooding into parts of Texas and Louisiana.
The storm was upgraded on Monday night from a tropical depression, and forecasters with the National Hurricane Center (NHC) expect it will make landfall in Texas later on Tuesday.
Tech companies have underestimated the opposition to energy-hungry datacenters – and experts predict the pushback will intensify
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, listening to Dolly Parton in the wake of her death. I was lucky enough to see her in concert a decade ago in California, in the same arena where Google now hosts its annual I/O conference. It’s been a long time, and all my iPhone 4 photos are so blurry you can barely tell it’s a musical performance, but my memory is clear enough to compensate. She told many stories about her childhood, which led into a trio of fabulous songs: My Tennessee Mountain Home, Applejack and Dr Robert F Thomas. They’re still my favorites.
Girls Gone Bible is on tour in the US, touting a regressive ideal of femininity through discussions of abstinence and mental health struggles
At first glance, the crowd gathering outside a music venue in Red Bank, New Jersey, could have passed for a group of sorority rush hopefuls – or Ella Langley fans on their way to the country star’s show. Most of them were under the age of 30. They wore cowboy boots, maxi sundresses and soft, bouncy blowouts, scrolling on their phones outside the doors as they waited for friends to arrive.
But one accessory gave them away: the Bibles they toted. These women were there to pray.
Claims that Trump and Rubio are trying to influence result have parallels with CIA intervention 64 years ago
The year was 1962 and the Kennedy administration was desperate to swing Brazil’s congressional elections against its leftwing president, João Goulart, as a way of countering the supposed communist threat sweeping a region the US considered its back yard.
Historians say that in the lead-up to the vote, the CIA and the Department of State secretly channelled millions of dollars to opposition candidates and a group tasked with spreading rightwing propaganda and stirring up unrest.
After lying dormant for years, the Era Dorada project in Asunción Mita resumed this year and villagers say history is being repeated, despite promises of change
In the community of La Lima in Guatemala, Elda Dinora Ramírez, 58, looks towards a small well at the back of her home. Dusty wooden planks lie across the opening, concealing the faint gleam of water far below. “The well is drying up again,” she says.
Ramírez’s home lies less than a mile from Era Dorada – a goldmining project acquired by the Canadian multinational Aura Minerals in January 2025. After years of inactivity, the project was reactivated this year when the Guatemalan government granted Aura a construction licence.
Questions over Trump’s ballroom and other structures might not feel urgent. But when his reign ends, Trumpism must be repudiated
On Monday, a majority on the supreme court found a technical way to overrule a lower court’s imperative to stop work, while not taking a stance on whether the whole enterprise might be illegal to begin with. Preservationists, the majority held, appear to lack legal grounds for filing a suit blocking Trump’s ballroom; that means construction will proceed, even if none other than John Roberts, in a dissent, held that “those responsible” were breaking the rules in deciding “what to build up at the People’s House”. The solicitor general John Sauer is on record claiming that 65% of the project is completed (of course, he might have exaggerated – such things are known to have happened in Trump administrations). Either way, it is thus likely that there will be a massive structure next to the original White House; and, given that the ruling will embolden the president dramatically to change Washington DC’s landscape by spending money never approved by Congress, we might be cursed with a triumphal arch as well. All of which raises the question: what to do with a monstrous architectural legacy in post-Trump America?
Some might dismiss the question as a bit of a luxury problem. After all, a war that also demonstrates the ongoing disempowerment of Congress keeps dragging on; ICE continues its cruel day-to-day work; Trump is trying every tactic to make the midterms go his way. But the built environment, and especially the civic landscape of a capital, is never just an afterthought. Buildings and monuments make values visible, as the philosopher Susan Neiman once put it. And the decision to leave Trump’s structures in place as if his reign had just been another normal era in US history is not neutral – just like leaving Confederate monuments in place is not neutral.
Jan-Werner Müller is a Guardian US columnist and a professor of politics at Princeton University
Artist rose to prominence in 2018 by painting his eponymous tag in public spots across southern England
The street artist Helch, known for murals and tags across England, has died, his gallery has said.
He rose to prominence in 2018 by painting his eponymous tag in capital letters across a string of public spots in London as well as bridges on the M4, M1 and M25.