Puma is launching a campaign to mark the 50th anniversary of US sprinter Tommie Smith’s black-gloved salute at the 1968 Olympics. Rival Nike recently scored a hit with an ad featuring a current activist for racial equality.

Thousands of students across the US are joining in a National School Walkout today on the one month anniversary of the mass shooting at a Florida high school that killed 17 people.

Governments can now easily see where we’re going, who we’re talking to, and what interests we have. All without our knowledge or consent, writes Elizabeth Farries.

A judge in Hawaii has blocked the latest version of the Trump administration travel ban just hours before it was set to take effect.

A watered down version of Donald Trump's travel ban came into effect at 1am.

A man has crashed his vehicle into the new Ten Commandments monument in Arkansas, nearly three years after he was arrested over the destruction of Oklahoma's monument at its state Capitol, authorities said.

Twitter has defied a US government request for records that could identify users behind an account opposed to President Donald Trump, and is challenging that order in court.

Chelsea Clinton has said she does not have her sights set on running for public office

Judges in Hawaii and Maryland have blocked Donald Trump's revised travel ban from taking effect as scheduled, using the US president's own words as evidence that the order discriminates against Muslims.

We all love games, and we like getting them for cheap - and it also doesn't hurt if we can help charity along the way.

Buoyant US presidential contender Hillary Clinton says she is looking past Donald Trump and widening her mission to help fellow Democrats seize the Senate and chip away at the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

The sister of a man charged with setting off bombs in New Jersey and New York told police in 2014 that he was getting ready to hit her with a dumbbell and stabbed another brother in the leg when he tried to help her, police reports show.

Oliver Stone’s film ‘Snowden’ may change US public opinion and garner support to pardon the whistleblower, who performed a public service in the public interest, says James Bamford.

Actress Amber Heard is donating her $7m divorce settlement from actor Johnny Depp to charity.

A school in Virginia can block a transgender male from using the boys' toilets when term starts next month, the US Supreme Court ruled.

North Carolina's governor has ordered anti-discrimination rules be expanded for state employees but stopped short of repealing the law.

Good afternoon. Here’s all the news you need to know this lunchtime.

Pope Francis secretly met a Kentucky county clerk who was jailed for refusing to issue marriage licences to gay couples and gave her words of encouragement, her attorney said.

Legal marijuana could be the first billion-dollar industry not dominated by men, writes Gogo Lidz.

A Kentucky sheriff has defended a deputy officer who restrained two disabled elementary schoolchildren by using handcuffs, last autumn. The sheriff says the deputy did nothing wrong.

The US Supreme Court is weighing the free speech rights of people who use violent or threatening language on Facebook and other social media.

FOR the tens of thousands of Central American unaccompanied children who have entered into the US in recent years, the journey doesn’t stop at the border: They must appear at an immigration hearing where a judge decides if they have legal relief to stay in the country.

Cocaine cake a ‘joke in bad taste’

A conservative Christian organisation is appealing against a ruling against a suburban Denver baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex ceremony.

Snapchat plans to put out a more secure version of its application following a breach that allowed hackers to collect the usernames and phone numbers of around 4.6 million of its devotees.

A former head of MI5 believes the US will seek a deal with whistleblower Edward Snowden in a bid to prevent him divulging more secret intelligence material.

A federal judge has ruled that a massive US phone-tracking programme is legal.

The court battle between two girls and their Pennsylvania school over “I (heart) Boobies!” bracelets could be settled by the US Supreme Court.

Ohio’s prison system is reviewing how Cleveland kidnapper Ariel Castro - perhaps the most notorious figure behind bars in the state – managed to hang himself with a bedsheet while in protective custody.

US soldier Bradley Manning has been sentenced to 35 years in prison for giving hundreds of thousands of classified military and diplomatic documents to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.

The US Supreme Court handed a significant victory to gay rights advocates by recognising that married gay men and women are eligible for state benefits and paving the way for same-sex marriage in California.

DURING the “Red Scare” that swept the US in the wake of Russia’s 1917 Bolshevik revolution, the justice department launched a cycle of raids against radicals and leftists.

The US government has admitted that a top spy agency was using a “crucial tool” against terrorism by sweeping up domestic telephone records, but new revelations on the practice sparked a swift backlash.

A gay couple is pursuing a discrimination complaint against a US bakery, saying the business refused them a wedding cake to honour their ceremony and alleging that the owners have a history of turning away same-sex couples.

As the lone surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing lay in hospital under heavy guard, the American Civil Liberties Union and a federal public defender raised concerns about investigators’ plan to question Dzhokhar Tsarnaev without reading him his rights.

Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was still in hospital this morning, in a serious condition and under heavy guard.

Rock legends Steven Tyler and Mick Fleetwood have convinced a Hawaii Senate committee to approve a bill to protect celebrities from intrusive paparazzi.

Saying the gay population has “suffered a history of discrimination”, an appeals court in New York ruled that a US law defining marriage as between a man and a woman is unconstitutional.

US public schools in Jackson, Mississippi, will no longer handcuff students to poles or other objects and will train staff at its alternative school on better methods of discipline.

The Pentagon has said it is ready to resume a trial at Guantanamo Bay for the acknowledged mastermind of the September 11 attacks and four other men.

The Pentagon has said it is ready to resume a trial at Guantanamo Bay for the acknowledged mastermind of the Sept 11 attacks and four other men.