US restaurant chain abandons rebrand after new logo prompts firestorm of criticism online.

Cracker Barrel, the US restaurant chain known for its southern-style cuisine, has abandoned a controversial rebrand following a backlash stoked by prominent right-wing figures including United States President Donald Trump.

The Lebanon, Tennessee-based chain said on Tuesday that it would bring back its decades-old logo after its announcement of a simplified design provoked a firestorm of criticism online.

“We said we would listen, and we have. Our new logo is going away and our ‘Old Timer’ will remain,” the company said in a statement.

“At Cracker Barrel, it’s always been – and always will be – about serving up delicious food, warm welcomes, and the kind of country hospitality that feels like family. As a proud American institution, our 70,000 hardworking employees look forward to welcoming you to our table soon.”

Cracker Barrel, which has more than 600 stores across the US, last week unveiled a new logo as part of the “fifth evolution” of its brand, ditching the image of a seated man leaning against a barrel in favour of a simplified, text-only design.

The redesign prompted a swift backlash in right-wing circles, with some commentators claiming the company had gone “woke” – a term used by conservatives to mock what they see as an excessive fixation on racial and gender diversity.

Shares in Cracker Barrel, which had fallen sharply amid the backlash, rose more than 6 percent in after-hours trading following the reversal.

Weighing in on the furore shortly before Cracker Barrel’s announcement on Tuesday, Trump called on the company to revert to its old logo and “admit a mistake”.

“They got a Billion Dollars worth of free publicity if they play their cards right. Very tricky to do, but a great opportunity,” Trump wrote on his platform Truth Social.

Following Cracker Barrel’s U-turn, Trump congratulated the chain on the change.

“All of your fans very much appreciate it,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“Good luck into the future. Make lots of money and, most importantly, make your customers happy again!”

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has used the presidency to exert an extraordinary level of influence over private businesses.

Trump last week announced that the US government had taken a 10 percent stake in Intel, days after confirming that chip giants Nvidia and AMD had agreed to pay 15 percent of revenues from chip sales in China into Washington’s coffers.

Last month, Coca-Cola announced that it would release a version of its signature drink made with cane sugar in the US after Trump claimed to have persuaded the company to start using the sweetener in favour of high-fructose corn syrup.

Australian police are continuing a massive search for a heavily armed man suspected of shooting and killing two officers in a rural town.

Ten police officers were fired upon on Tuesday after travelling to the property in Porepunkah – about 300km (186 miles) north-east of Melbourne – to execute a warrant for alleged sexual offences.

Almost 24 hours later, police have named the suspect as local man Dezi Freeman, 56, and confirmed he is “still at large”.

Police have deployed officers, a helicopter and armoured vehicles to the area and warned locals to stay inside until Mr Freeman is caught.

“We are pouring every resource into the search,” Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police Mike Bush said.

“Be vigilant, keep yourselves safe.”

He has previously said the two officers were “murdered in cold blood” and identified them as a 59-year-old detective and a 35-year-old senior constable – but said their names won’t be released until relatives had been informed.

A third officer who was injured in the shooting was now out of surgery, Mr Bush said, and though “significantly damaged” he would recover.

He also addressed previous reports by local media that Mr Freeman had taken his family hostage, adding that police had spoken to his partner and children and they were safe.

Authorities have had no sightings of Mr Freeman since he ran off after the shooting, and are focusing on “dense bush area” near his home.

“He will know that area better than us so that is why we are putting in every expert, supported by local knowledge,” Mr Bush said.

“Our understanding is that he understands bushcraft well which provides a challenge to us.”

Surrounded by heavily wooded hills in the Australian Alps, Porepunkah is only about an hour’s drive from the New South Wales border.

Mr Bush added that police are searching a “very, very wide” area and are also exploring whether Mr Freeman may have left the state – though there is “no information” at this point to suggest that has happened.

United States President Donald Trump has announced his government will seek the death penalty in every murder case that unfolds in Washington, DC, as part of his crackdown on crime in the country’s capital.

Trump made the announcement in the midst of a Labor Day-themed meeting of his cabinet on Tuesday as he discussed a range of issues, from weapons sales to the rising cost of living.

“Anybody murders something in the capital: capital punishment. Capital capital punishment,” Trump said, seeming to relish the wordplay.

“If somebody kills somebody in the capital, Washington, DC, we’re going to be seeking the death penalty. And that’s a very strong preventative, and everybody that’s heard it agrees with it.”

Trump then acknowledged that the policy would likely be controversial, but he pledged to forge onwards.

“I don’t know if we’re ready for it in this country, but we have no choice,” Trump said. “States are gonna have to make their own decision.”

Federal prosecutions in DC

Washington, DC, occupies a unique position in the US. The US Constitution defined the capital as a federal district as opposed to a state or a city within a surrounding state.

Elsewhere in the country, most murder cases are prosecuted by state or local authorities unless they rise to the level of a federal crime.

But in Washington, DC, the US Attorney’s Office – a federal prosecutor’s office under the Department of Justice – prosecutes nearly all violent crimes.

The administration of former President Joe Biden had backed away from the death penalty. Under the Democrat’s leadership, the Justice Department ordered a moratorium that paused capital punishment as it reviewed its policies.

Biden himself campaigned on the promise that he would “eliminate the death penalty”, arguing that more than 160 people who were executed from 1973 to 2020 were later exonerated.

“Because we cannot ensure we get death penalty cases right every time, Biden will work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level and incentivize states to follow the federal government’s example,” Biden’s team wrote on his 2020 campaign website.

While Biden ultimately did not eliminate the federal death penalty, in one of his final acts as president, he commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row.

In a statement in December, he anticipated that a second Trump administration would pursue the death penalty for federal cases.

“In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted,” Biden wrote.

A reversal of policy

But when Trump took office for a second term on January 20, one of his first executive orders was to “restore” the death penalty.

“Capital punishment is an essential tool for deterring and punishing those who would commit the most heinous crimes and acts of lethal violence against American citizens,” Trump wrote in the order.

“Our Founders knew well that only capital punishment can bring justice and restore order in response to such evil.”

The Republican leader had campaigned for re-election on a platform that promised a crackdown on crime and immigration, sometimes conflating the two despite evidence that undocumented people commit fewer crimes than US-born citizens.

In the days leading up to his inauguration, Trump doubled down on that pledge, denouncing Biden for his decision to commute the majority of incarcerated people on federal death row.

“As soon as I am inaugurated, I will direct the Justice Department to vigorously pursue the death penalty to protect American families and children from violent rapists, murderers, and monsters,” Trump wrote on his platform Truth Social. “We will be a Nation of Law and Order again!”

Trump has repeatedly pushed for the increased use of the death penalty in the seven months since, including during an address to a joint session of Congress in March.

In that speech, he called on Congress to pass a law to make the death penalty a mandatory sentence for the murder of a law enforcement officer in the US.

During his first term, from 2017 to 2021, Trump gained a reputation for accelerating the use of capital punishment on the federal level.

While federal executions are rare, the first Trump administration conducted 13 of the 16 executions that have taken place since 1976, the year the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty.

The only other president to carry out capital punishment during that time was a fellow Republican, George W Bush. His administration oversaw three federal executions.

Critics fear a similar uptick in death penalty cases during Trump’s second term.

Public support for capital punishment has been steadily declining over the past decade, according to surveys. The research firm Gallup found that, as of 2024, a narrow majority of Americans – 53 percent – were in favour of the death penalty, down from 63 percent a decade earlier.

A DC crime crackdown?

Trump’s call to apply the death penalty to all murder cases in Washington, DC, coincides with his controversial push to crack down on crime in the capital city.

That comes despite data from the Metropolitan Police Department that show violent crime in the capital hit a 30-year low in 2024, a statistic shared by the Justice Department in a statement in January.

Homicides, it added, were down by 32 percent over the previous year.

But Trump has maintained that crime fell only when he deployed more than 2,000 armed National Guard troops to patrol the city this month.

“Crime in DC was the worst ever in history. And now over the last 13 days, we’ve worked so hard and we’ve taken so many – and there are many left – but we’ve taken so many criminals. Over a thousand,” Trump said at Tuesday’s cabinet meeting.

He also claimed – without evidence – that the local government in Washington, DC, gave “false numbers” in its crime reporting.

“What they did is they issued numbers: ‘It’s the best in 30 years.’ Not the best. It’s the worst. It’s the worst,” Trump said. “And they gave phoney numbers.”

Just a day before, Trump signed an executive order to develop a new unit within the National Guard “to ensure public safety and order in the Nation’s capital”.

But under the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, the federal government is largely prohibited from using military forces for domestic law enforcement except in cases of disasters or major public emergencies.

Trump has described crime in Washington, DC, as a national emergency although local leaders have disputed that assertion.

At several points during Tuesday’s cabinet meeting, he defended his strong-arm approach to law enforcement as necessary, even if it earns him criticisms for being a “dictator”.

“The line is that I’m a dictator, but I stop crime. So a lot of people say, ‘You know, if that’s the case, I’d rather have a dictator.’ But I’m not a dictator. I just know to stop crime,” Trump said.