Tom Cruise heaped praises not only on the singer’s talent but also about her family

Eliazar Quintero is facing second degree murder charges in the death of the 9-year-old boy and injury to his 10-year-old brother

Following a five-year federal investigation, a grand jury has indicted President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden on three charges connected to a gun purchase in 2018, a time period during which the president’s son has admitted to using drugs. Federal law prohibits people who use drugs from buying firearms, but questions surrounding the constitutionality of that law could throw the case into jeopardy following a landmark US Supreme Court decision that opened a wave of litigation under the court’s expansive Second Amendment lens. That’s if the case survives the political maelstrom targeting the Biden family, with congressional Republicans eager to prosecute the president’s son and impeach his father in parallel probes separate from a US Department of Justice special counsel investigation facing GOP pressure. That partisan scrutiny comes as the leading candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination for president faces four sprawling criminal trials of his own, including charges for serious crimes allegedly committed while serving as 45th president. Republican officials and campaigns are eager to draw a false equivalence and dominate airtime with investigations surrounding the younger Biden instead. Ironically, a Supreme Court decision celebrated by Republicans last year may have set a precedent that could protect Hunter Biden from prosecution. The Gun Control Act of 1968 prohibits people who use drugs from possessing firearms, a ban that applies to people who have admitted to using illegal drugs within 12 months before buying a gun, according to the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Violating that provision could land an offender with a 15-year prison sentence. But the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v Bruen – decided by the court’s six conservative justices – argues that such restrictions be historically consistent with the Second Amendment. As Justice Clarence Thomas wrote, “the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition.” The decision created an absurdly high new burden to test the constitutionality of restrictions and other safety measures to combat the proliferation of high-powered firearms and keep them out of the hands of people who could be a danger to themselves or others in the American era marked by daily mass shootings and surging rates of gun violence, analysts and advocates have argued. President Biden has said the decision “contradicts both common sense and the Constitution.” Within a year after that decision, more than a dozen state and federal gun laws have been challenged, with 30 per cent of civil cases and nearly 4 per cent of criminal cases citing the Bruen decision in challenges that have invalidated gun control measures, according to research in Duke Law Journal. This year, federal judges in several cases have ruled that banning someone who uses drugs from owning a firearm is “inconsistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” “In short, our history and tradition may support some limits on an intoxicated person’s right to carry a weapon, but it does not justify disarming a sober citizen based exclusively on his past drug usage,” Ronald Reagan-appointed US District Judge Jerry Smith wrote for a federal appeal courts panel in August. “Nor do more generalized traditions of disarming dangerous persons support this restriction on nonviolent drug users.” Hunter Biden is charged with illegally owning a gun as a drug user, and with allegedly lying on a form when he bought the firearm. If convicted, he could face up to 25 years in prison, though it is highly unlikely he would face such a sentence. Jacob Charles, a professor at Pepperdine University’s Caruso School of Law and a constitutional law scholar focusing on the Second Amendment, said Mr Biden’s attorneys likely have a viable Second Amendment case. It might be more difficult to challenge federal law against lying on a firearms form, which is not directly tied to Second Amendment rights, “so it’s possible that an appeals court or the Supreme Court would agree with the defense on both of the questions, and say it’s unconstitutional, and since it’s unconstitutional, you also can’t be punished for lying about the other category,” Mr Charles told The Independent. Essentially: if one count is on unconstitutional grounds, there’s a chance the other counts wouldn’t stand up either. “It’s not always the case that the higher profile the defendant, the more likely you’re going to get Supreme Court review,” he said. “Sometimes it seems to happen lately. But there are other cases that are farther along in the process that are challenging this same law, that if the court really wanted to answer this question, it wouldn’t have to use the Hunter Biden vehicle to do it.” Mr Charles says the case has underscored the “disruptive effects of the Supreme Court’s decision in Bruen” and the chaotic new landscape for the nation’s myriad gun laws, which now have an apparent historical analogy regardless of the urgency for such laws in the first place. This year, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a major Second Amendment test that further magnifies the chasm between the new historical test and current realities, when justices will hear a case involving a man who possessed firearms and allegedly repeatedly shot at people while subject to a domestic violence restraining order. It is also unclear what evidence prosecutors are reviewing to determine that Hunter Biden was using drugs at the time; those details are publicised in his memoir, in which he describes his struggle with abuse and his relapse in 2018, the year he bought the gun. Mr Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell believes the case will be tossed out altogether. “The only change that has occurred between when they investigated [this alleged crime] and today is that the law changed,” he told ABC’s Good Morning America on 15 September. “But the law didn’t change in favour of the prosecution. The law changed against it.” ‘I’ve never heard of this charge. Never’ Mr Lowell and others have also questioned the timing of the case, parallel to growing threats of impeachment from far-right members of Congress against President Biden and adjacent investigations from House Republicans seeking criminal prosecutions against the president and his family. “The US Attorney’s Office has known about this for years,” Mr Lowell said. “What changed? Not the facts, not the law, but all the politics that have now come into play.” The younger Biden was prepared to plead guilty to charges stemming from the firearms purchase as well as separate tax-related misdemeanours earlier this year, though a plea agreement appeared to fall apart under scrutiny from a federal judge. Justice Department special counsel David Weiss, who as US Attorney for Delaware has been investigating Hunter Biden for roughly five years, said he would seek a grand jury indictment in the case by the end of September. Mr Weiss was appointed by Mr Trump and initially requested by congressional Republicans to lead a special counsel probe. Following the collapse of that plea deal, Mr Lowell stressed to CBS Face the Nation that Mr Weiss is “a Republican US attorney appointed by a Republican president and attorney general who had career prosecutors working this case for five years looking at every transaction” in which Hunter Biden was involved. “If anything changes from his conclusion,” he added, “the question should be asked, what infected the process that was not the facts in the law?” Outside of the constitutional scrutiny in Mr Biden’s case is the unusual stand-alone charge for lying on a form, which is typically charged in connection with a more serious underlying crime. The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 – supported by then-Senator Joe Biden as the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee – made a federal form for firearms purchases a key part of a package of anti-crime legislation. According to prosecutors, Hunter Biden lied on the form when he was asked whether he is an “an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance.” But the chance of being prosecuted for lying on that form is exceedingly rare among the millions of background checks performed each year. Within the fiscal year that Mr Biden bought the gun and filled out that paperwork, federal prosecutors received 478 referrals for charges – and filed cases in roughly half of them. Mr Biden likely did receive so-called “special treatment” from federal prosecutors, as Republican officials have claimed. But it was in the opposite direction. His prosecution appears especially more severe than that facing a typical defendant. “Can anyone tell me how many people have been federally indicted for purchasing a gun while dealing with substance abuse issues?” asked Keisha Lance Bottoms, a former senior adviser to President Biden. “I don’t know the answer, but in my over 29 years as an attorney, I have never heard of it.” According to former Justice Department inspector general Michael Bromwich, these kinds of charges simply do not happen. “I’ve been involved in law enforcement both as a prosecutor and a defense lawyer for 40 years. I’ve never heard of this charge being brought. Never,” according to Mr Bromwich, who served as Justice Department inspector general from 1995 to 1999 and previously served as a federal prosecutor in New York. He is currently a senior counsel at Steptoe & Johnson LLP. “I think it’s extremely unusual to bring, if not unprecedented to bring, this set of charges,” he told The Independent. “These charges were brought as a result of the unrelenting political pressure brought by Republicans in Congress to bring a heavy hand down on Hunter Biden as a way of trying to get to Joe Biden, and I think the prosecutor, Mr Weiss … has succumbed to political pressure,” he said. A plea agreement like the one reached this summer “is much more in keeping with what an ordinary prosecutor would do,” according to Mr Bromwich. Should Mr Weiss seek a plea arrangement like the one prosecutors sought earlier this year, his office is “going to invite criticism from the very Republicans who will put the pressure on him right now who now feel great that there are these very serious charges against Hunter Biden,” he told The Independent. “Given all the forces at play, all the political pressure exerted from the Republican members of Congress, it’s very hard to predict where this is going to go, and how.” Read More Trump denies pushing for Biden impeachment inquiry in secret meetings with MAGA Republicans Hunter Biden indicted: What are the charges and what could happen next? Will House Republicans put up or shut up on Hunter Biden? Should domestic abusers have the right to be armed? The Supreme Court could upend protections for survivors Trump, January 6 and a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election: The federal investigation, explained

Altice makes up such a large part of the European junk bond index that the news police had

An attorney for Joran Van der Sloot, the prime suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway, has filed a habeas corpus petition against his client's temporary transfer from a Peru prison to the US.

The front-runners for their party’s presidential nomination, Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden, are barely campaigning in crucial early-voting states as the primary season enters the fall rush

Grimes has opened up about raising her children with ex, Elon Musk, with the musician revealing that their three-year-old son “knows a lot about rockets”. The singer, 35, spoke candidly about co-parenting with the Tesla CEO during her cover story interview with Wired, published on 8 August. Along with their three-year-old, X Æ A-12 - who goes by “X” - the former couple shares a one-year-old daughter, Exa Dark Sideræl, who goes by “Y”. While speaking to Wired, Grimes was asked about Musk’s “weird kind of protégé thing going on” with their son, as he’s taken him to “meetings” and work events before. However, Grimes said that she’s “here for that” relationship between the father and son, before explaining that they share common interests. “X knows a lot about rockets,” she said. “It’s crazy. He knows more about rockets than me.” She then specified that she and Musk have stopped giving X toys, since he “gets upset” if “they’re not anatomically correct”. However, the singer confessed that she’s been a little worried about her son’s interest in space, as she described his reaction to the Starship rocket exploding earlier this year. “He’s a little engineer, for sure. But his obsession with space is bordering on: ‘Is this healthy?’ When X saw Starship blow up, he had, like, a three-day PTSD meltdown,” Grimes recalled. “Every hour, he was waking up and going: ‘Starship …’ and I had to rub his back.” Grimes - who announced her split from Musk in 2022- shared that her daughter is “a little engineer too,” explaining: “She likes industrial shipping. She’s very strange.” As she continued to open up about co-parenting with her ex, she said that she’s “trying to find a great peer group,” or “other parents who are sort of like us and share similar values”. She went on to speak candidly about the different boundaries she wants to set as a parent. “I really care about having a very good relationship with my kids. I think I understand how to be a good parent to them,” she said. “Both enforcing discipline and being their friend. Who knows, maybe they’ll resent me and reject family culture, but I feel like they will not.” She also confessed that she’s “a little bit” worried about her children’s privilege, as their father holds the title as the richest person in the world. “I think their life is gonna be pretty intense,” she said. “Being Elon’s kid is not the same as being anyone’s kid. In my house, at least, I want it to be more of a crazy warehouse situation and a cool art space.” Grimes and Musk first met in 2018 when he direct messaged her on social media, where they then made the same pun about artificial intelligence. In September 2021, Musk revealed to Page Six that he and Grimes have “semi-separated” due to conflicting schedules and locations. Two months later, the pair welcomed their daughter together via surrogate. After the announcement made headlines, Grimes told Vanity Fair in March 2022 that she and Musk have a fluid, inexplicable partnership. However, she later made a clarification about the comment on Twitter, noting that while she and Musk had broken up since welcoming their daughter, “he’s my best friend and the love of my life”. Elsewhere in her interview with Wired, Grimes acknowledged that she’s learned a lot from her ex, specifically when it comes to leadership skills. “I learned from him, like, the best internship ever. People don’t like talking about Elon, but it was incredible to be right there watching all that SpaceX stuff happen,” she said. “That’s a master class in leadership and engineering and makes you understand how rare it is to have a leader of that quality.” Grimes continued to praise Musk’s management skills, adding: “Elon has an old-world kind of discipline I really respect. And I think it rubs a lot of people the wrong way. They don’t want to be in that hardcore zone. If you’re not consenting to being in that hardcore zone, I get it.” She also specified that Musk has “challenged” her a lot, and taught her about running her own company and team. When asked what her ex learned from her, she said that she’s helped him “have more fun”. “I try to soften him up, to build family culture,” she said. “And he steals a lot of my memes.” Read More Elon Musk gave Grimes a ‘trivia test’ on Lord of the Rings when they first started dating Grimes criticised for remarks about Lizzo accusers Grimes weighs in on alleged cage match between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg Elon Musk gave Grimes a ‘trivia test’ on Lord of the Rings when they started dating Grimes weighs in on alleged cage match between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg Mark Zuckerberg reveals his 4,000 calorie diet and large McDonald’s order

WASHINGTON The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to raise the mandatory commercial pilot retirement age

Ameed al-Jaghoub was unarmed and apparently going to help a wounded man when he was hit.

Emilia Clarke’s mother has described how her daughter’s brain haemorrhage changed the Clarke family “in an instant”. Emilia, who played Daenerys Targaryen on Game Of Thrones, and her mother set up a brain injury charity after the star survived two life-threatening brain conditions while she was filming the hit TV show. Jenny Clarke said it feels like her daughter’s brain haemorrhage – a bleed on the brain – “feels like yesterday” even though it was more than a decade ago. The incident, which took place when Emilia was working out in a north London gym in 2011, was “completely out of the blue”, Jenny said. She said her daughter fought to stay conscious even though she was in “the worst pain she could ever imagine”. Emilia, now aged 36, was taken to a hospital in London but medics did not immediately spot that she had suffered a brain haemorrhage and it took “a long time” before she was sent to a specialist hospital where she received life-saving care, Jenny told the PA news agency. Jenny said there needs to be more awareness among medics about brain haemorrhages in young people because the condition is traditionally seen as something that happens to older people. Emilia also had to have a second procedure in 2013 where surgeons in New York had to remove a brain aneurysm which was found through routine check-ups. The Me Before You star and her mother have since set up the charity SameYou which is working to develop better recovery treatment for survivors of brain injury and stroke. Jenny, who is chief executive of the charity, said that rehabilitation after brain injury is “undervalued and under-prioritised” and should be a “key component of universal health coverage”. She said that while people with serious side effects of brain injury – such as mobility or speech and language problems – do get support, there is often little or no help for people who suffer mild to moderate problems. Jenny told PA: “It feels like yesterday to us really, because it was just such a profound shock. “She had just started Game Of Thrones, the first season had been filmed and she had just come back from a press tour. “And then she had her first brain haemorrhage which was completely out of the blue – it was a morning in March and she was in the gym and she suddenly felt this terrible pain in her head – she’s been quoted as saying it was the worst pain she could ever imagine. “She also realised that something was seriously wrong with her because the pain was so intense. “So she did her best, as she was lying semi-unconscious on the floor of the gym, to try and make sure she kept a sense of what was around her and she fought to make sure that she didn’t lose consciousness.” Jenny added: “When she was rushed to a hospital in London, it was very difficult to establish what has happened to her – and that’s also something that we think is very important; maybe there isn’t enough specialist information and training to actually recognise what happens when you have a brain haemorrhage when you’re young. “People expect people to have strokes and brain haemorrhages when they’re older, it’s a problem of older age, but Emilia was 23 when she had her first brain haemorrhage, so people didn’t recognise it as a brain haemorrhage. “So it took a long time before she was admitted to the wonderful Queen Square (the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery), which is part of University College London Hospitals and literally her life was saved because of an intervention to stop the bleeding. “But it was three weeks in hospital before we knew whether she was going to have another stroke, and whether she would have different health problems as a result of the brain haemorrhage.” Jenny continued: “When it comes completely out of the blue, your life is just changed in an instant. And I must say that our lives have been continuously changed because of it.” After describing the second “open head surgery” in the US, Jenny said: “Those two great big shocks really have profoundly changed all of us as a family.” The comments come as Jenny attended the launch of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Rehabilitation Alliance in Geneva – a coalition which is calling on countries to do more for people in need of rehabilitation services. Jenny delivered a speech to the WHO about the power of advocacy, saying: “There is huge power if survivors come together with one voice to demand that integrated rehabilitation is moved up the agenda. “One in three people will experience a brain injury. They are the most powerful advocates – and this meeting is calling for their needs to be heard and action to be taken.” On rehabilitation for brain injury survivors, she told PA: “As a young person… when something like this happens, you absolutely must have as much support as possible and it just doesn’t really exist. “If you have severe consequences of brain injury, of course, there are many places helping people if you’ve got strong long-term, serious conditions, but what we found was, is that you can have mild to moderate brain injury – and that means you don’t have any necessarily physical issues; you don’t have necessarily any speech and language difficulties, but you do always have the trauma that you’ve had the problem – and there is a just a huge lack of awareness that this is important enough to put resources to get it treated.” She added: “Rehabilitation is undervalued and under-prioritised and that’s clearly got to change as a key component of universal health coverage. “It was such a shock when it happened to us, when Emilia had her brain injury. “We’ve had thousands of people write to us, and so it’s not just our own lived experience, there’s just not enough provision, not enough services available. “There is a great unmet need and a gap in service provision after you’ve survived a brain injury, and you’re trying to rebuild your life, particularly if you’re a young adult. “And what we are advocating for is there needs to be a lot more information given to survivors of brain injury, about what’s happened to them and their opportunity to get recovery services. “There is a gap between what survivors and their families say they need and want and what is currently available in many developed countries.” Read More It took until my thirties to realise I might not be white Carrie Johnson announces birth of third child with Boris Johnson: ‘Guess which name my husband chose’ Buckingham Palace responds to Joe Biden’s ‘protocol breach’ with King Charles Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live

Graduates from the University of Massachusetts Boston left their graduation ceremony with more than just diplomas thanks to a generous billionaire.

By Ross Kerber Vanguard supported just 2% of shareholder resolutions on environmental and social issues at U.S. companies