A US mother charged with murdering two of her young children has lost her fight to avoid extradition from the UK.

Kimberlee Singler’s nine-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son were found dead in a residential property in Colorado after being shot in the head and stabbed in the neck on 19 December 2023, police said.

Singler’s 11-year-old daughter was also at the scene with an injury after she was slashed with a knife, officers added.

Prosecutors allege the 36-year-old carried out the attacks in Colorado Springs amid a protracted custody battle with her ex-partner.

Despite initially co-operating with the investigation, Singler reportedly disappeared on 23 December 2023 and a warrant was issued for her arrest on murder charges.

She was arrested by the National Crime Agency in Kensington, west London, on 30 December 2023 and appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on New Year’s Day facing extradition to the United States.

She has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted murder, three counts of child abuse and one count of assault.

Singler’s lawyer had argued that sending her back to the US would violate European human rights law, in part, because she faces a sentence of life in prison without parole in Colorado if convicted of first-degree murder.

Such a sentence would be inhumane because it offers no prospect for release even if she is rehabilitated, lawyer Edward Fitzgerald said.

District Judge John Zani rejected the challenge at Westminster Magistrates’ Court today.

Singler, wearing a teal jumper and jogging bottoms, was remanded into custody

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper will now decide whether she is to be extradited to the US.

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“You see on the news all the time undocumented, illegal, and you realise that’s you.

“There’s fear. It’s in your head, it’s stuck with you. Even when you get out there and you find someone staring at you, you’re concerned. Who are they? Did someone tell on me?”

Franklin is not his real name and he’s asked us to keep his identity secret. He is an African migrant fleeing political persecution in a country he doesn’t want us to name.

The abundance of caution shows how terrified he is that he might jeopardise his asylum application in this new Trump era by speaking with the media, but he wants his words to count.

“Maybe it will help, maybe it will help others”, he says. “They’ll know they’re not alone.”

President Trump has promised the biggest deportation in US history, with his new border czar, Tom Homan, saying he’ll target “the worst, first”.

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Franklin has not committed a crime, violent or otherwise. He should not have to worry. But he does.

“If you’re going door to door home by home, restaurant by restaurant, how are you discerning who is a hardened criminal and who’s not?”, asks Anuj Gupta, who runs The Welcoming Centre in Philadelphia, an NGO focused on economic growth through immigrant integration.

“So there is the fear of getting swept up in that, irrespective of what your status is. That chilling effect is more impactful than whatever their potential policy or operationalisation of it may be. It also dampens everyone’s willingness to participate in day to day life.”

Africatown in South West Philadelphia is a hub for the African diaspora, some of whom have lived here for decades, many of whom are more recent arrivals.

It wears its heritage proudly, via colourful street murals and African flags along the main Woodland avenue which houses a cluster of shops and small businesses.

A new $23m (£18.56m) community centre, the Africa Centre is due to be completed next April. It is a case study in thriving immigrant entrepreneurship.

“A lot of people are scared right now to come out because of Trump’s threats, a lot of people who don’t have documents,” says Sullay, to explain the relatively empty streets.

It could be the chilling effect of potential ICE raids, the widely known acronym for federal immigration and customs enforcement. It could be the bitter cold, minus 12 in Philly on Thursday.

Amadou – not his real name – from Guinea is confident his asylum claim is in the works. He believes in the system. He proudly shows off his application on the Biden-era app which was supposed to provide a legal pathway to asylum, and the hearing he has scheduled for later in the year.

“I like Donald Trump,” Amadou says. “I think he is a good president. If he says America First, maybe that’s good.

“If my president said Guinea First, that would be good too. Maybe I would stay there.”

Donald Trump has ordered the release of thousands of classified files on the assassination of President John F Kennedy.

The 1963 killing in Dallas is the source of one of the most well-known conspiracy theories of modern times.

Lee Harvey Oswald was said to be the gunman, but was shot dead himself two days after JFK‘s killing.

Theories that have persisted include that there was a second shooter and that it was plot connected to communist Cuba.

President Trump had promised during his election campaign to make public the last withheld records on the case.

He signed an executive order to that effect on Thursday, telling reporters “everything will be revealed”.

The order will also declassify remaining federal records on the assassinations of civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr in 1968, and JFK’s brother, Robert F Kennedy, who was shot dead the same year while running for president.

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Mr Trump had promised to uncover the documents during his first term but agreed with CIA and FBI pleas to keep some secret.

JFK’s nephew, Robert F Kennedy Jr, is the president’s pick for health secretary and has said he is not convinced just one man was behind his uncle’s murder.

After signing the order, Mr Trump ordered the pen should be given to RFK Jr.

However, JFK’s grandson Jack Schlossberg hit back at President Trump’s executive order, saying there was “nothing heroic” about it.

“The truth is alot sadder than the myth – a tragedy that didn’t need to happen. Not part of an inevitable grand scheme,” he wrote on X.

“Declassification is using JFK as a political prop, when he’s not here to punch back.”

The attorney general and head of national intelligence must now come up with a plan in the next 15 days to declassify the JFK files, and within 45 days for the other cases.

It is therefore unclear exactly when they will see the light of day – and experts on the case are not holding their breath for any major revelations.

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Only a few thousand of the millions of records on the JFK case are still to be fully declassified.

“There’s always the possibility that something would slip through that would be the tiny tip of a much larger iceberg that would be revealing,” said Larry J Sabato, author of a book on Kennedy.

“That’s what researchers look for. Now, odds are you won’t find that but it is possible that it’s there.”

The executive order is the latest in a slew signed by Mr Trump in his first few days back in the White House.

Others include leaving the Paris climate agreement, renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, and terminating government diversity programmes.

However, his attempt to end birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented migrants has already been temporarily blocked by a judge.