US government, which owes legal services firm $65m, stopped paying in December, as contract runs out Friday

Current and former prosecutors are denouncing the Trump administration for fast-tracking the deportation of immigrant children, as a key contract for legal services is set to expire on Friday.

A series of federal laws has for decades shielded child immigrants from removal, either to protect their safety or to allow them to testify against abusers or human traffickers.

Officers in murder trial testify of arriving at Massachusetts home after anguished 911 call from Patrick Clancy

The two police officers focused first on Lindsay Clancy drifting in and out of consciousness in the snow after jumping from her Massachusetts home’s second-floor window in January 2023. Within minutes, they were racing into the basement after her then husband screamed that all three of their children were dead.

“I can’t wake them up – I can’t get them up!” Patrick Clancy frantically told the officers who, along with firefighters and paramedics, gave jurors first-hand accounts on Thursday of the aftermath.

Mayor announces resignation of Shon Barnes after city officials faced criticism over response to Sunday shooting

Seattle’s police chief has resigned amid criticism of the city’s response to a fatal shootout at a food festival last weekend, Katie Wilson, the mayor, said on Thursday.

The announcement followed hours of speculation about whether Shon Barnes would step down, as some of his supporters said he had rebuffed Wilson’s request that he resign.

Former lieutenant governor says path to Democratic nomination no longer viable as democratic socialist rival surges ahead

Mandela Barnes, the former lieutenant governor of Wisconsin, dropped out of the Democratic primary for governor on Thursday, upending the high-stakes contest less than two weeks before the 11 August election.

Barnes announced the decision in a video posted on social media, saying he no longer saw a viable path to the nomination, as democratic socialist Francesca Hong surged ahead with a commanding lead.

Republican senators sought written limits on settlement, but president held firm despite risk to attorney general pick

Donald Trump’s refusal to officially end a hugely controversial agreement giving him broad tax immunity and creating a $1.8bn slush fund underscored how the US president’s own self-interest takes precedence above all else in his government.

For weeks, Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, has said that the slush fund portion of the agreement was dead. And for a few brief hours on Wednesday, it seemed that the president might agree to a relatively modest request from two Republican senators to put in writing that there were certain limits on an extraordinary tax immunity deal. After all, it seemed like a small price to pay in exchange for getting Blanche, a staunch Trump loyalist who previously served as his personal lawyer, confirmed permanently as the US attorney general.

Measure fails 49-50 as US launches new retaliatory attacks in Iran and lawmakers question the prolonged conflict

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The US Senate on Thursday rejected a largely symbolic effort to limit Donald Trump’s authority to wage war in Iran, amid rising regional tensions after the US conducted a “heavy wave” of retaliatory airstrikes.

The war powers resolution failed in a 49-50 vote, marking the second time in two weeks the chamber has taken up legislation aimed at forcing Trump to end hostilities.

Vast majority of farm workers say raids and deportations have affected their jobs and 61% report shopping less

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Farm workers in the US are reeling from the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, including increased raids and deportations, according to a new survey conducted by the United Farm Workers Foundation released on Thursday.

The survey features responses from 2,250 farm workers, many of whom are undocumented, about their experiences with immigration enforcement that has intensified under the second Trump administration.

Kathryn Ruemmler was blasted by family of late Virginia Giuffre after House committee transcripts were released

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A former White House counsel and former general counsel of Goldman Sachs, who has faced scrutiny over her past ties to Jeffrey Epstein, told a House committee this month that some of the allegations made by one of his most prominent accusers “lacked inherent credibility”, according to newly released transcripts.

Kathryn Ruemmler’s name appeared thousands of times in records related to Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender, that were released earlier this year by the US Department of Justice under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

Ohio representative is accused by his ex-wife and ex-girlfriend of abuse as he campaigns for re-election

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The Ohio representative Max Miller is facing growing pressure to resign over a series of domestic abuse allegations made by his ex-wife and former girlfriend.

The Republican congressman, 37, who represents Ohio’s seventh congressional district, has denied accusations made by his ex-wife, Emily Moreno, and former girlfriend Stephanie Grisham, as he campaigns for re-election.

Donations to top US provider have dropped to four-year summer low with less than a day’s supply of type O positive

The American Red Cross has declared the second-ever national blood supply crisis after blood donations fell to a four-year summer low.

On Monday, the 145-year-old non-profit said that as the United States’ largest single provider of blood products, it now has less than one-day national supply of type O positive blood – the most commonly transfused blood.

President says he has no objection to pulling his former lawyer’s name until dissenting Republicans are out of office

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Donald Trump said on Thursday he may “temporarily” pull the nomination of Todd Blanche to serve as attorney general, but would keep him in the role in an acting capacity until two Republican senators objecting to his confirmation leave office next year – an extraordinary escalation of an intra-party fight over an agreement to create a $1.8bn slush fund and give the president tax immunity.

Two Republican senators – John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina – have refused to back Blanche’s nomination until they receive written confirmation from the justice department that it is not moving forward with a widely criticized agreement creating a $1.8bn fund to compensate people claiming they were targets of political weaponization and granting the president, his family and business entities broad immunity from past tax investigations.

First US pope says mission is to be pastor of a universal church but expresses ‘great love’ for his home country and its core principles

Pope Leo, the first US pontiff, has expressed “great love” for his home country and its core principles of freedom, opportunity and welcoming immigrants, but qualified that he just “happens to be American”.

In an interview with the US broadcaster NBC on the sidelines of a prayer event in Castel Gandolfo, the papal retreat near Rome, Leo, who has condemned the immigration policies of Donald Trump’s administration, spoke about his own family history in describing his relationship with the US.

We’d like to hear from Black Americans who are using artificial intelligence for health or spiritual guidance

Artificial intelligence is growing in influence in the healthcare space, and more people are seeking guidance from AI tools, including AI-generated social media influencers. Black people in the US, who have been long subject to racism in the healthcare system, are among some of those who are leaning on AI for health-related matters and information.

We would like to hear from Black respondents about their experiences with Black AI-generated health and spiritual influencers.

Eric Washington was known for knocking on doors, connecting residents with services and believing Compton could change

Anyone who knew Eric Washington knew that he had two great loves in his life: his mother and the Los Angeles Rams football team.

Washington was shot and killed on 4 July alongside Meah Bordenave-Jenkins, a 19-year-old aspiring nurse, while at a block party in Compton, California. With his death, the Los Angeles region lost a homegrown community organizer who worked in the city and county’s most underserved neighborhoods.

Lawmakers question delays in medical care, casualty figures and Pentagon’s handling of drone attack in Kuwait

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The Trump administration is facing growing demands to explain why wounded US soldiers went more than a week without adequate hospital care after a March drone strike in Kuwait, just days into the US-Israel war on Iran.

In a letter to the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, congressional Democrats urged the Pentagon to answer their questions – which include why the Pentagon’s public casualty count for the war with Iran briefly changed – by 12 August.

Trump’s overall approval rating slumps to 34%, according to new CNN poll, as midterms testing Republican power loom

Three-quarters of Americans believe Donald Trump is not paying enough attention to the country’s most important problems, and two-thirds think he places himself above the needs of the US, according to a new poll.

The CNN survey, conducted by the market research company SSRS, comes less than 100 days before November’s midterm elections in which the president’s Republican party is widely expected to lose control of one or both chambers of Congress.

Father of 10-year-old rescued in a dramatic scene captured on video says lifeguard saved his son

• ‘Super proud’: father of teen lifeguard recounts dramatic ocean rescue

The father of a 10-year-old rescued from pounding surf off the California coast in a dramatic scene captured on video says he is beyond grateful to the teenage lifeguard who saved his son.

“He ran into that water despite those conditions that are deadly,” Sumit Rai told the Associated Press on Wednesday. “You have 10ft waves; you have riptides and currents coming in.

A century ago, compounding pharmacies helped people get bespoke drugs. Now these less-regulated businesses are fueling the peptide boom

Robert F Kennedy Jr is sitting stiffly in Joe Rogan’s podcast studio, inside the influencer’s enormous Texas mansion. Atypically for Rogan’s guests, Kennedy still cloaks himself in the trappings of authority; in a blue suit and pink novelty tie featuring kayakers paddling upstream, he is a stark contrast from Rogan, who sports a biceps-hugging T-shirt depicting a cowboy and an outline of Texas, from the “regenerative wellness” brand Ways2Well.

This was in February, when Kennedy, amid his nationwide Take Back Your Health tour, was pushing his new red-meat-heavy food pyramid on to Americans. For an hour and a half, the two chatted casually about everything from soda pop to medical scams that supposedly fund Boko Haram.

The conservative columnist Ross Douthat is the network’s latest perplexing hire – but the move is in line with the new leadership

In media circles, this week’s hire of a prominent New York Times columnist as a correspondent for CBS’s 60 Minutes was greeted with disbelief.

The collective response went something like this: “What?!”

State department ‘takes full responsibility’ for erroneous, widely shared chart displayed at Aids conference in Brazil

A US government map of Africa mislabeled every country during a state department presentation at a ⁠global conference in Brazil ⁠this week, ​causing a stir among attenders who took screenshots and posted them online.

Reuters viewed a video of the presentation given at the Aids 2026 conference in ⁠Rio de Janeiro, which shows the errant map displayed halfway during a presentation about the state department’s new health agreements.

US judge says case involved a property crime, not a hate crime, and orders mental health treatment

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A New Jersey man who rammed his car into a Brooklyn, New York, synagogue earlier this year has been sentenced to time served plus seven days.

Dan Sohail, 36, of Carteret, New Jersey, was sentenced on Wednesday by US district judge Eric Vitaliano in federal court in Brooklyn, according to court records. Sohail had pleaded guilty in May to damaging religious property and has already spent about six months in custody.

• Family says Smith faced ‘dementia caused by CTE’

• College Football Hall of Famer played 10 NFL seasons

Former San Diego Chargers linebacker and College Football Hall of Famer Billy Ray Smith Jr has died. He was 64.

Smith’s family said in a statement Wednesday that Smith died following a bout with CTE-caused dementia.

Democrat Kaohly Her, Minnesota’s city’s first female mayor, allegedly sent inappropriate messages to employees

The first female mayor of St Paul, Kaohly Her, is reportedly under investigation for sexual harassment following a complaint filed by the Minnesota city’s police chief.

City leaders have contracted an outside law firm to conduct an independent inquiry into the allegations that Her, a Democrat who was elected in November, sent inappropriate messages to employees, including several members of the police department, the New York Times and NBC News said.

Consumer spending remained resilient even as policymakers kept interest rates on hold

The US economy expanded at a sluggish 1.5% pace from April through June as rising imports weighed on growth. But consumer spending rose. And the Federal Reserve’s favored measure of inflation grew more slowly last month despite remaining above the central bank’s 2% target.

The commerce department reported on Thursday that growth in US gross domestic product (GDP) – the nation’s output of goods and services – decelerated from 2.1% in the first three months of 2026 and came in below economists’ expectations.

Gianni Infantino’s plan for a Fifa subsidiary is odious – but it’s hard to feel surprised

Just when you thought global soccer couldn’t get more odiously capitalistic, Gianni Infantino said: “Hold my beer” (as long as that beer you’re holding is a Michelob Ultra, one of the official sponsors of the 2026 World Cup).

The World Cup, one of the largest and most prestigious sporting competitions on the planet, is for sale. Infantino, the president of the soccer governing body Fifa, is the architect of a plan to sell up to 20% of a new subsidiary that would administer tournaments such as the World Cup and Club World Cup. The subsidiary, which would oversee Fifa’s commercial activities, would be called “Fifa Forward Enterprises”. If I see the word “forward” in a corporate initiative, I assume it’s either a diversity program that’ll get dropped after a couple years, a training video on how to exit a building during an emergency evacuation, or a blatant cash grab. Take a guess which one I think this is.