Andrea Leadsom, the former business secretary, has asked the Government to consider a “virtual trial” for Harry Dunn’s alleged killer, who remains in the United States.

Anne Sacoolas was charged with causing death by dangerous driving after a crash in August last year which resulted in the 19-year-old’s death.

But the 42-year-old claimed diplomatic immunity following the collision outside RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire and was able to return to her home country, sparking an international controversy.

In a letter to Home Secretary Priti Patel on Monday, the Dunn family’s constituency MP Andrea Leadsom described a virtual trial as a “way to achieve closure… without undermining the US decision not to accept the extradition request”.

Mrs Leadsom also wrote to the Solicitor General, the Foreign Secretary, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Lord Chancellor to put forward the idea of a virtual trial or a trial in Sacoolas’s absence.

The family’s spokesman Radd Seiger said the family “would not object” if a decision was taken to conduct a remote trial.

In the letter, Mrs Leadsom said: “You may be aware that the anniversary of Harry’s death falls on August 27 and this is obviously an extremely difficult time for the family.

“They are very anxious to obtain closure on these terrible events before that date and seek urgent comments on the possibility of the trial of Anne Sacoolas virtually or in her absence.

“She could remain on US soil, have a virtual trial with a UK court, and should there be a custodial sentence, she could serve it in the US under the existing prisoner transfer agreement.

“Now the ‘loophole’ that allowed Anne Sacoolas to claim diplomatic immunity has been closed by our Foreign Secretary’s excellent efforts, it must be clear to all that the claim of immunity was the wrong thing to do and that a virtual trial is a way to achieve closure for Harry’s family without undermining the US decision not to accept the extradition request.”

Mr Dunn’s family said their “final goodbye” to their son last month as they scattered his ashes in his favourite place – Portland Bill, near Weymouth in Dorset.

Reacting to the letters, Mr Dunn’s mother Charlotte Charles told PA: “How justice is administered is not a matter for me as a victim of this very serious crime.

“However, I’m very grateful to Andrea Leadsom for working hard on our behalf to ensure that justice is done for Harry.

“I can see that she has written to the authorities suggesting that Anne Sacoolas is tried remotely from the US and we’re grateful for her looking at ways in which justice can be achieved.”

An extradition request submitted by the Home Office for Sacoolas was rejected by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in January.

The US State Department later described the decision as “final”, despite the loophole which allowed Sacoolas to claim diplomatic immunity being closed by both countries last month.

The Home Office said the issue was a matter for the Attorney General’s Office which confirmed a letter had been received but declined to comment further.

The Mayflower II, a replica of the 17th-century ship Mayflower, which transported the first Pilgrims from England to North America in 1620, returned after a three-year restoration on Monday to the port of Plymouth, Massachusetts, the same place where settlers arrived 400 years ago.

There had been plans for a celebratory tour of the ship to mark the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower voyage, but Covid-19 got in the way.

The historic reproduction has spent the last three years in Connecticut, getting an £8.6 million restoration.

No one knows what happened to the original Mayflower ship, according to the Plimoth Plantation living history museum.

Watch the video to see what the Mayflower ship would have looked like in the 17th century.

Trying to suppress the internet, Bill Clinton once said, is like “trying to nail jello to the wall”. Back in 2000 he was talking about China, which was then nearing the end of its years-long negotiations to join the World Trade Organisation. 

Today the United States itself, and Mr Clinton’s successor Donald Trump, are just as busily hammering away at gelatin.

It is not only President Trump’s campaign against TikTok, which has given the app’s Beijing-based owner ByteDance just 45 days to flog it to an American company. It is also his administration’s general vow to disconnect from all “untrusted” Chinese apps, including WeChat – a sprawling “super-app” used by about one billion people for everything from hailing taxis to buying film tickets, whose exclusion from Apple’s App Store could cut iPhone sales in China by 30pc.  

The European Union is also lending a hand. Its Privacy Shield agreement, which lets companies freely transfer data between it and the US, was recently struck down in court, while its regulators are growing ever more aggressive. 

Margrethe Vestager, the EU monopoly enforcer whose promotion in December was viewed as a top-level endorsement of her approach, told the Telegraph in April that she wanted to protect European start-ups from American “shopping spree[s]”.

All of which leaves Britain trapped in the middle, forced to choose which version of the internet it should cling to most closely. With the Government having reportedly given the nod to TikTok to establish its new global HQ in London, despite the pressure it received from Trump over Huawei, the flashpoint may not be far off.

The administration of US President Donald Trump is considering a measure to block US citizens and permanent residents from returning home if they are suspected of being infected with the new coronavirus, a senior US official confirmed to Reuters.

The official said a draft regulation, which has not been finalised and could change, would give the government authorisation to block individuals who could “reasonably” be believed to have contracted Covid-19 or other diseases.

Mr Trump has instituted a series of sweeping immigration restrictions since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, suspending some legal immigration and allowing US border authorities to rapidly deport migrants caught at the border without standard legal processes.

It was reported in May that US government officials were concerned that dual US-Mexico citizens might flee to the US if the coronavirus outbreak in Mexico worsened, putting more stress on US hospitals.

The draft regulation, which was first reported by The New York Times on Monday, would be issued by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which has played a lead role in the pandemic response, the senior official said.

A Trump pandemic task force was not expected to act on the proposal this week, although that timeline could change, the official said.

The US leads the world in both confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths, with more than 5 million cases recorded and over 162,000 deaths, according to a Reuters tally.

Omar Jadwat, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s immigrants’ rights project, said in a written statement that barring US citizens from entering the country would be unconstitutional and “another grave error in a year that has already seen far too many”.

The CDC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In 2016, Kamala Harris was a fresh-faced senator still finding her way around Washington. 

A year later, her role on the Senate Intelligence Committee, which was investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, earned her the kind of national spotlight almost unheard of for a fledgling senator. 

One of her most notable appearances on the committee was in June 2017, when her feisty exchange with Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump’s attorney general at the time, won her plaudits from Democrats.

Ms Harris’s prosecutorial background was shown to full effect as she questioned Mr Sessions on his contacts with Russian agents during the 2016 election campaign. 

Her questioning, he freely admitted during the televised appearance, made him “nervous”. The exchange was carried live on US cable news and made a political star out of Ms Harris.

Donald Trump was scrambled from the White House briefing room just minutes into an opening statement on Monday after the secret service shot someone nearby.

The US president was talking about the likelihood of a stock market surge when suddenly a suited man with an earpiece asked him to leave the room.

Mr Trump later returned to the briefing room, where he had been addressing the press, to explain what had just happened.

Mr Trump said that someone who was armed had been shot by the secret service outside the White House fence, though he said exact details at the time remained unclear.

The president said that the person had been injured and taken to hospital. It was not clear the gender or age of the person involved.

Almost 100,000 American children tested positive for Covid-19 in the last two weeks of July, raising concerns for many US schools which planned to reopen this month.

The US saw a 40 per cent increase in coronavirus cases among children at the end of last month according to a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association, which found that at least 97,000 children tested positive for coronavirus in the last two weeks of July.

The report, which used data from 49 states as well as Washington DC, Puerto Rico and Guam found that the increase was felt most acutely in the south and west of the US, which accounted for more than seven out of every 10 infections.

The report also suggested the true number of cases among children could in fact be higher as the study did not include complete data from Texas, which has seen one of the largest outbreaks in the country, as well as parts of New York State.

However the age range of the children differed by state, with some defining children as those up to age 14 and one state – Alabama – pushing the limit to 24.

The figures undercut Donald Trump’s claim that children are “almost immune” to the virus as he pushes for the country’s schools to reopen for in-person learning.

A retired US police officer has revealed how he finally managed to track down a man who escaped jail after shooting him almost five decades ago.

Officer Daril Cinquanta first encountered Luis Archuleta in Colorado in 1971, when the notorious criminal shot him in the stomach.

Archuleta was jailed over the shooting, but managed to escape from prison three years later after feigning an illness to secure a hospital visit.

“It was an escape from a Hollywood script,” Mr Cinquanta said, complete with “a hostage, a getaway car, an accomplice with guns.”

When Mr Cinquanta learned of his attacker’s escape, he made it his mission to track him down.

Years of calling contacts for potential leads led Mr Cinquanta to San Jose, California in the 1980s, but the trail appeared to run cold.

Undeterred, Mr Cinquanta continued his search for his attacker and was rewarded with a tip off this June, 47 years after Archuleta went on the run.

The tip came from an anonymous caller who suggested Archuleta was now living under the alias Ramon Montoya at an address in Española, New Mexico.

Mr Cinquanta’s research revealed that Mr Montoya had been charged with drunk driving in 2011 and a search of the police database showed that his mug shot matched Archuleta.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Mr Cinquanta told CBS Denver. “I’ve been chasing the guy all of this time, and dead end after dead end after dead end.”

Mr Cinquanta, who is now retired, alerted the local police force and the FBI, who tracked down Archuleta, now 77, and arrested him on August 5.

A major explosion leveled several houses as it tore through a Baltimore neighborhood on Monday, killing at least one person and critically injuring three while at least five others including children were trapped, firefighters said.

The Baltimore Sun reported it was a natural gas explosion, citing fire officials, but said the exact cause remained unknown.

Photos from the scene showed a section of row houses leveled with rubble strewn about as rescue workers climbed over a pile of debris, searching for victims.

“One adult woman deceased as BCFD continue to search for more,” the Baltimore City Fire Department posted on Twitter.

US Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar met with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on Monday during the highest-level visit by an American Cabinet official since the break in formal diplomatic ties between Washington and Taipei in 1979.

Ms Tsai said to reporters at the Presidential Office Building that said she looked for “even more breakthroughs and fruits of cooperation” in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic and other issues to “jointly contribute to the sustained peaceful development of the Indo-Pacific region.”

Mr Azar praised Taiwan’s response to Covid-19 and said its success was a tribute to the “open, transparent, democratic nature of Taiwan’s society and culture.”

“It’s a true honour to be here to convey a message of strong support and friendship from President Trump to Taiwan,” Mr Azar said.

Mr Azar is due to hold consultations with health officials and deliver a speech later in the day.

Beijing has protested Mr Azar’s visit as a betrayal of US commitments not to have official contact with the island that China claims as its own territory and threatens to use force to bring under its control.

Mr Azar’s visit was facilitated by the 2018 passage of the Taiwan Travel Act, which encouraged Washington to send higher-level officials to Taiwan after decades during which such contacts were rare.

China cut contacts with Ms Tsai over her refusal to recognize China’s claim to the island and has brought increasing diplomatic, economic and military pressure against her, including by poaching away several of its remaining diplomatic allies and excluding it from international gatherings including the World Health Assembly.

That, in turn, has increased already considerable bipartisan sympathy for Taipei in Washington and prompted new measures to strengthen governmental and military ties.

Closer relations come as Washington is enmeshed in a series of disputes with Beijing over trade, technology, the South China Sea and Beijing’s crackdown on opposition voices in Hong Kong.

Taiwan, an island of 23 million people, moved swiftly and aggressively to contain Covid-19 and has recorded just 277 cases and seven deaths from the illness.