Pentagon grounds global fleet of F-35s after crash
The Pentagon grounded the global fleet of F-35 stealth fighters on Thursday so that engineers could conduct urgent inspections following the first ever crash of the costliest plane in history.
Preliminary data from a Marine Corps F-35B that was completely destroyed in a South Carolina crash last month showed a potential problem with a fuel tube, officials said.
"The US services and international partners have temporarily suspended F-35 flight operations while the enterprise conducts a fleet-wide inspection of a fuel tube within the engine on all F-35 aircraft," said Joe DellaVedova, a spokesman for the F-35 programme.
He added that suspect fuel tubes would be removed and replaced. If good tubes are already installed, then those planes will be returned to operational status. Inspections were expected to be completed within 24 to 48 hours.
Kanye West shows his love for Donald Trump with a hug
Rap megastar Kanye West loves Donald Trump and proved it in dramatic fashion on Thursday, leaping from his seat at a White House meeting to hug the president.
"I love this guy," Kanye declared in the Oval Office.
The rapper had been invited to lunch to discuss prison reform but turned what was would ordinarily have been a staid White House photo-op into what must have been one of the most unusual encounters in the Oval Office's storied history.
Melania Trump says there are people in the White House she doesn't trust
First Lady Melania Trump said in an interview broadcast on Thursday that there have been people in her husband's White House whom she doesn't trust, including some who still work there, and that she considers herself one of the most bullied people in the world.
During the interview with ABC News, conducted during her recent solo trip to Africa, Trump was asked by interviewer Tom Llamas whether the president has had people working for him she didn't trust.
"Yes," she replied, adding that she has let her husband know.
Buyer of shredded Banksy work goes through with deal
The buyer of a work by street artist Banksy that was partially destroyed moments after it sold has gone through with the purchase, Sotheby's auction house said on Thursday.
The painting Girl with Balloon was passed through a shredder hidden in the frame just after it went under the hammer last week for £1,042,000 (S$1.9 million).
The modified version has now been certified by Banksy's authentication body Pest Control as a new piece of work in its own right, entitled "Love is in the Bin".
Late singer Amy Winehouse to return to the stage as a hologram
Fans of late British singer Amy Winehouse, whose untimely death in 2011 at age 27 shook the music world, will be able to see her on concert stages again in the form of a hologram, her father told Reuters.
The show, expected to debut in 2019, will be created by the same company that has produced hologram tours for 1960s crooner Roy Orbison and opera singer Maria Callas. Producers hope to take the concert around the world for three years.
The Winehouse hologram will be projected on stage in front of a live band that will accompany the voice from her original recordings.
