Last week’s proceedings in murder case of Brian Thompson showed a mix of politics, social comment and drama

The trial of Luigi Mangione is one of the most eagerly awaited cases in recent American criminal history and last week’s court appearances by the accused killer acted as a sort of trailer for the still unscheduled main event.

As a New York court weighed whether evidence was gathered illegally during Mangione’s arrest on charges of fatally shooting a top healthcare executive on the streets of New York, America got a taste of the trial’s potent mix of politics, social comment, conspiracy theory and Hollywood-style murder drama.

Daniel Andreas San Diego, now 47, is fighting extradition from the UK amid accusations he set off three pipe bombs in 2003

Twenty-two years ago, a dark-haired, bespectacled young man vanished off the streets of San Francisco. Daniel Andreas San Diego, a 25-year-old information technology specialist, diehard vegan and animal rights activist, was the FBI’s main suspect in a series of pipe bombings that exploded in front of the headquarters of Chiron Corporation and Shaklee Corporation, two Bay Area companies, in August and September of 2003.

Communiques attributed to the Revolutionary Cells – Animal Liberation Brigade were posted to the website of an animal rights magazine, claiming the attacks were carried out to highlight both firms’ alleged work with Huntingdon Life Sciences, a British research company that conducted tests for pharmaceutical, biotechnology and other chemical companies and had drawn the ire of activists on both sides of the Atlantic opposing its tests on animals.

Actor speaks out over controversy around American Eagle advert in the summer that critics say flirted with eugenics

The actor Sydney Sweeney has said she should have addressed the controversy surrounding her American Eagle jeans advert, which was accused by critics of flirting with eugenics, saying not doing so “widened the divide” between people.

Sweeney, who made her name in HBO’s Euphoria and has since become a leading Hollywood star, told People magazine she regretted staying silent during the row, in which Donald Trump at one point intervened.

National guard shooting prompts extraordinary outburst and targeting of people from startling range of countries

When the history of Donald Trump’s second presidency is written, 26 November 2025 may well go down as a particular landmark.

On the eve of Thanksgiving, a lone gunman shot two West Virginia national guards, Sarah Beckstrom, and Andrew Wolfe, as they were on patrol outside Washington DC’s Farragut West metro station, a short walk from the White House – and thereby opened the floodgates to a wave of racist and anti-immigrant invective that seemed extreme even for Trump.

The movement’s success was never a given. It took much longer and required repeated action and tremendous sacrifice, without any certainty it would work

The Montgomery bus boycott, which began 70 years ago on 5 December 1955, is now understood as one of the most successful American social movements. And yet, much of how it is remembered is romanticized, inaccurate and even dangerous – distorting how we imagine social change happens.

In the fable, Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat, Black Montgomery residents rise up, a young Martin Luther King Jr is introduced to the world, and injustice is vanquished. The right action is all it takes – furthering a mythology that, without deep preparation or sacrifice, Americans can make great change with a single act. Today, in the face of rising injustice, many criticize young activists for being too disruptive, too disorganized, too impractical. But, in fact, the Montgomery movement began much earlier and took much longer than we imagine and entailed tremendous sacrifice. It required hard choice after hard choice without evidence these actions would matter, and was considered too disruptive by many at the time – all of which gives us important lessons for how to challenge injustice today.

Jeanne Theoharis is a distinguished professor of political science at Brooklyn College and the author of King of the North: Martin Luther King Jr’s Life of Struggle Outside the South and The Rebellious Life of Mrs Rosa Parks.

Canadian author discusses US under Donald Trump and says setting of dystopian novel has ‘become much closer’

Margaret Atwood has said the plot of her book The Handmaid’s Tale, which tells a story of an authoritarian regime under which women are forced to reproduce, has become “more and more plausible” in recent years.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, Atwood said she believed the plot was “bonkers” when she first developed the concept for the novel because the US was the “democratic ideal” at the time.

From his home town of Los Angeles, the architect designed a career around defying what was predictable

In Frank Gehry’s world, no building was left untilted, unexposed or untouched by unconventional material. The Canadian-American architect, who died in his Los Angeles home at 96, designed a career around defying what was predictable and pulling in materials that were uncommon and, as such, relatively inexpensive.

Gehry collaborated with artists to turn giant binoculars into an entryway of a commercial campus, and paid homage to a writer’s past as a lifeguard by creating a livable lifeguard tower. And while dreaming this up, he transformed American architecture along the way.

The term ceasefire ‘risks creating a dangerous illusion life is returning to normal’ for Palestinians squeezed into the remaining 42% of their land behind Israel’s ‘yellow line’

When Jumaa and Fadi Abu Assi went to look for firewood their parents thought they would be safe. They were just young boys, aged nine and 10 and, after all, a ceasefire had been declared in Gaza.

Their mother, Hala Abu Assi, was making tea in the family’s tent in Khan Younis when she heard an explosion, a missile fired by an Israeli drone. She ran to the scene – but it was too late.

The anti-coagulant rodenticides also unintentionally harm wildlife across the state, including endangered species

The administration of Gavin Newsom, the California governor, is moving to loosen restrictions around the most toxic rat poisons, even as a new state report shows the rodenticides are unintentionally poisoning wildlife across the state, including endangered species.

Blood-thinning, anticoagulant rodenticides were significantly restricted when a 2024 state law approved after 10 years of legislative wrangling required the California department of pesticide regulation to limit the substances’ use unless data showed species collaterally harmed or killed by it had rebounded.