Ex-president says US in ‘dangerous moment’, after White House response to killings of Kirk and Melissa Hortman

Barack Obama addressed the recent killing of Charlie Kirk and told a crowd in Pennsylvania on Tuesday the country was “at an inflection point”, but that political violence “is not new” and “has happened at certain periods” in US history.

Obama added that despite history, political violence was “anathema to what it means to be a democratic country”.

This article was amended on 17 September 2025. A previous version misspelled the name of Melissa Hortman.

Attorney general during Trump’s first term made comments to House oversight committee, transcript shows

The former US attorney general William Barr has repeated his finding that Jeffrey Epstein’s 2019 death in prison was “undoubtedly suicide” to a panel of lawmakers looking into the disgraced financier’s crimes and connections.

Barr, the top prosecutor in Donald Trump’s first term when the justice department brought sex-trafficking charges against Epstein, made the comments to the House oversight committee late Monday, according to an interview transcript.