• Australian returns on AU$4.9m contract after season on sidelines

• Former No 1 pick hopes to reignite basketball career with fourth club

Australian former No 1 overall draft pick Ben Simmons has taken a significant step towards resurrecting his NBA career, agreeing a one-year deal with the Sacramento Kings.

The Melbourne-born guard returns on a US$3.5m (AU$4.9m) contract after sitting ‌out the entire 2025-26 campaign while rehabilitating back and leg injuries that have hampered him in recent years.

Ruling allows defense department to proceed for now in exerting greater editorial control over military news outlet

A federal judge has declined to stop the Pentagon from firing journalists who say they were illegally punished for speaking out about the need for the Stars and Stripes publication to maintain its editorial independence.

The ruling by US district judge Trevor McFadden allows the Pentagon to proceed for now in exerting greater editorial control over the historically independent military news outlet.

Interior department given three months to decide whether wolves can be removed from endangered species list

Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday directing the interior department to consider de-listing gray wolves from the Endangered Species Act and to contemplate whether the agency could make it easier to authorize killing them.

The order gives interior secretary Doug Burgum three months to determine whether gray wolves and Mexican gray wolves have recovered enough for the federal government to de-list them.

Indira Talwani’s ruling presents major setback for president as first states begin to send out mail ballots for midterms

A federal judge on Friday again blocked Donald Trump’s executive order to impose sweeping restrictions on mail-in voting, the latest in a legal back-and-forth playing out less than two months before election day.

US district court judge Indira Talwani initially placed a temporary order blocking the president’s mandate and has now extended that prohibition with a stronger preliminary injunction. The ruling comes hours after North Carolina became the first state to start sending out mail-in ballots for the 3 November midterm elections.

Jeffrey Mosteller pleaded no contest to charges relating to burning death of Thomas Cooper in Michigan

A former safety manager has been sentenced to one year and seven months in prison in connection with the death of a five-year-old Michigan boy who was killed in a fiery January 2025 explosion inside a hyperbaric oxygen chamber.

Jeffrey Mosteller, 66, received that sentence after pleading no contest to involuntary manslaughter in Oakland county circuit court in Michigan on Monday.

• New pact includes terms for first-division USL Premier

• Base pay for Championship grows from $31k to $42k

• Agreement runs through the 2030 season

The United Soccer League and USL Players Association announced the ratification of a new collective bargaining agreement for two levels of the organization’s pyramid on Friday, with fresh terms taking effect immediately and running through 2030. The new pact include a second agreement for the second-division USL Championship as well as the first set of terms for the upcoming USL Premier, a first-division sanctioned league scheduled to lauch in 2028.

Among the headline items of the deals is the introduction of 12-month contracts for players, a codified first in the US lower divisions. The first USL CBAs worked to standardize 10-month contracts; before then, clubs varied in their commitments to players. Championship players will earn a base compensation (which includes housing) of $42,000 in 2026 – up from $31,000 – with that floor increasing annually over the term of the agreement. The USL Premier will also launch with 12-month contracts and a compensation floor of $67,500 in 2028 with annual increases worked into the CBA.

• ‘It’s tricky to handle when you’re trying to compete’

• Alcaraz into fourth round after straight sets victory

Aryna Sabalenka briefly stopped her match at the US Open to complain about the strong smell of cannabis on her court as she comfortably reached the fourth round in New York.

Sabalenka, the two-time defending champion, continued her attempts to rebuild her form as she overcame a challenging test from Kamilla Rakhimova before winning 6-3, 6-4.

The weeks-long murder trial of Lindsay Clancy, a Massachusetts mother accused of fatally strangling her three children, has ended in a mistrial. As the public now waits for what will happen next, the Guardian's breaking news reporter Maya Yang looks at some of what happened in court during 'America's saddest murder trial'

Lawmakers condemn agency for ‘obstructing the pursuit of juice’ over death of nearly blind Nurul Amin Shah Alam

Democratic lawmakers are demanding that the Department of Homeland Security turn over records and fully cooperate with an investigation into the death of Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a nearly blind Rohingya refugee who died after US border agents left him outside a closed coffee shop on a freezing night in Buffalo earlier this year.

At a press conference in Buffalo on Friday, standing just a few feet away from where Shah was found dead, Tim Kennedy of New York was joined by Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the ranking Democrat on the House homeland security committee, Lou Correa of California, and Nellie Pou of New Jersey in calling on DHS to cooperate with the Erie county district attorney’s investigation.

US president suggests he might support his Argentinian ally’s drive to reclaim sovereignty of disputed islands

Donald Trump has long embraced vengeance. “I am your retribution,” he declared to an admiring audience at the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) as he commenced his march back to the White House.

It is unlikely Argentina, and far-flung holdovers of the former British empire, were on the US president’s mind at the time.

Officials decline to confirm whether death was one of two announced last week as Lancaster county outbreak grows

A six-week-old child in Pennsylvania died from measles, the Lancaster County coroner has determined, following two measles-related deaths in the county last week.

The determination comes as Lancaster county faces a growing measles outbreak.

The president was moved to a separate aircraft during a July trip after officials learned of a possible Iranian threat, leaving questions about the plane’s defenses unanswered

Donald Trump intends to use the Boeing jet gifted by Qatar for his trip to Ireland next week, marking the first time the aircraft will leave the US since concerns were raised over whether it can adequately protect the president from attack.

The decision, a senior administration official told the Washington Post, comes weeks after Trump suggested the plane would be grounded for about a month while it underwent unspecified security upgrades.

Massachusetts mother accused of fatally strangling her children faces possibility of retrial after judge declares mistrial

• Full report: Judge declares mistrial in Lindsay Clancy case

• Clancy judge declares mistrial – what happens next?

The trial of Lindsay Clancy that gripped headlines in recent weeks, drawing renewed attention to the state of maternal mental healthcare in the US and postpartum psychosis, has ended with a mistrial.

This now leaves Clancy, the Massachusetts mother accused of fatally strangling her three children in January 2023 who pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, open to the possibility of a retrial with a different jury.

The case essentially goes back to the same status as before the trial began, and prosecutors have to decide whether to try again

• Full report: Judge declares mistrial in Lindsay Clancy case

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A Massachusetts jury was unable to come to a unanimous decision in the trial of Lindsay Clancy, a mother accused of murdering her three children, and a mistrial has been declared by Judge William Sullivan.

The 12-person jury was made up of nine women and three men and, according to the notes given to the court, was split 11 to one.

The New York City mayor will sign two executive orders honoring those impacted by the attacks, as he faces campaign to exclude him from the 25th anniversary commemoration

New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani is set to designate September 11 as a Day of Remembrance and Service ahead of the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.

Mamdani’s office announced on Friday morning that the mayor will sign two executive orders honoring victims, first responders, survivors, city workers and families affected by the attacks. The orders will also strengthen the city’s ability to protect New Yorkers and maintain essential services during emergencies.

Labor department report alleges Lori Chavez-DeRemer also made a staffer attend a strip club while on a personal trip

Donald Trump’s former secretary of labor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, drank during working hours, kept alcohol on federal property and made a staffer attend a strip club while on a personal trip, according to a new report by the Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General .

Chavez-DeRemer was appointed by Trump to serve as labor secretary in January 2025 and resigned in April 2026 amid the misconduct allegations.

The Nepal-Tibet flood disaster, Russian strikes in Kyiv, the Plaskett Fire in California and the Notting Hill carnival – the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

From mortgages to inflation, concerns about the public finances of major economies have wide-reaching consequences

When Donald Trump was asked recently about the threat of rising interest rates on US government debt, he told baffled reporters: “The ultimate intervention is our military. And if we have to use that, we will.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, Trump’s bellicose words did not soothe fractious bond markets, and his resumption of the bombing campaign against Iran only made matters worse.

Such is the US president’s narcissism that he would see a Democratic victory as proof that he’s indispensable – meanwhile, his every decision spells calamity for voters

What is Donald Trump playing at? If it’s true that the best way of understanding the behaviour of an organisation is to assume it’s controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies, perhaps that same logic extends to the current conduct of the president of the United States. Maybe he secretly wants Republicans to lose the looming midterm elections that will decide the balance of power in the US for the next two years and for which the first postal ballots were sent out today.

That’s not as mad a theory as it sounds. Indeed, there are at least two reasons why Trump might either be unbothered by Republican defeat in November or even covertly desire it. We’ll come to those, but let’s start with a pattern of behaviour that is hard to explain as anything other than calculated self-sabotage.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

Defense lawyer had asked for time to request emergency stay after jury was split 11 to one

• Lindsay Clancy murder trial: live updates

The judge in the trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother accused of killing her three young children, has declared a mistrial after the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict and remained deadlocked after a week of deliberations.

Jurors in Plymouth state court spent more than 38 hours in deliberations over the charges against the 36-year-old mom, which came on the heels of a weeks-long trial that directed national attention to maternal mental health issues that can occur postpartum.

• Seven-year tenure included both growth and tumult

• Internal and external candidates are on league’s radar

• Analysis: Cathy Engelbert’s defining wins and losses

WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert is retiring at the end of the year, bringing to a close her seven-plus years at the helm of the league and a stewardship that has been transformative and at times tumultuous.

Engelbert is the second-longest tenured WNBA president or commissioner, and she helped negotiate a lucrative collective bargaining agreement this past spring that resulted in the league’s first set of million-dollar player salaries.

This blog is now closed. You can find more of our reporting on the mistrial of Massachusetts mother who killed her three children here:

• Full report: Judge declares mistrial in Lindsay Clancy case

• Explained: Lindsay Clancy mistrial – what happens next?

• Five key moments from ‘America’s saddest murder trial’

If you’re just joining us, the judge in the trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother accused of killing her three young children, plans to declare a mistrial after the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict and remained deadlocked after a week of deliberations.

Jurors in Plymouth state court spent more than 38 hours in deliberations over the charges against the 36-year-old mom, which came on the heels of a weeks-long trial that directed national attention to maternal mental health issues that can occur postpartum.

Closing arguments ended last Thursday in the trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother who admitted killing her three young children – Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months – in January 2023. Her attempt to kill herself after killing the children left her with spinal injuries that paralyzed her from the waist down. Clancy pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder due to lack of criminal responsibility, also known as an insanity defense. She faced life in prison if convicted. The tragic case has sparked a national conversation about the state of postpartum mental healthcare in the United States.

The charges up for consideration were first-degree murder, which involves “deliberate premeditation” or “extreme atrocity or cruelty” and is punishable by life in prison without the possibility of parole, or second-degree murder, without either of those conditions, punishable by life in prison with the possibility of parole. They also considered lesser manslaughter charges, which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. If they had found Clancy not guilty, she could have spent the rest of her life in hospital, with the eventual possibility of release at a later time if the court determined she was not a danger to others.

Jurors began deliberating last Thursday on whether to accept her insanity defense, but, almost 40 hours on, they have now declared three times that they could not reach a unanimous decision. A jury note indicated that jurors were split 11-1 toward an acquittal but a holdout juror “has acknowledged doubt but refuses to apply it to the verdict”. The prosecution argued this indicated a disagreement among jurors over how to weigh the evidence, while the defense argued the juror had “lied” when they swore to the judge to properly follow the law. But the judge ultimately declined to question the juror further or have them removed.

After the jury declared today that, “with a heavy heart”, it still cannot “and will not be able to” reach a verdict, the judge said he intends to declare a mistrial. That has now been thrown into limbo after the defense asked for an emergency stay from Massachusetts’s highest court. The judge gave him one hour. We’ll bring you the latest as that unfolds.

At the heart of what has been called America’s saddest murder trial is Clancy’s mental health following the birth of her third child. Her defense, led by attorney Kevin Reddington, argued that Clancy should not be held criminally responsible for killing her children because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis – a devastating condition estimated to affect around two women per 1,000 births. He called Clancy “a darn good mother” and argued that she received “lousy” medical care when she sought help for her deteriorating mental state. She was in “the depths of despair” when she killer her children, he argued, and was compelled to kill them and herself by a persistent male voice during a spell of psychosis.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, argued that Clancy “deliberately and meticulously” killed her children, and acted “intentionally, rationally, and swiftly”. Prosecutors acknowledged Clancy’s mental health struggles but in its closing statement argued that Clancy was a “functioning mom” who knew “right and wrong”. The prosecution pointed to the medical resources and treatment available to her, and also downplayed the severity of Clancy’s suicide attempt. She put a level of planning into the killings that indicates she was not psychotic, they argued.

Officers clipped to bridge had tried to talk man, who was holding a knife, into coming down safely, officials say

New York City police shot and killed a man on Friday morning after he climbed on to the cables of the Brooklyn Bridge and approached officers with a knife extended, New York police department officials said.

At a news conference on Friday, NYPD officials said that a 911 call came in at around 3.28am on Friday morning, reporting that a man was walking on the beams of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Jury starts seven day of deliberations after foreperson told judge juror won’t follow instruction about reasonable doubt

The deadlocked jury in the Lindsay Clancy trial started a seventh day of deliberations on Friday, a day after the jury’s foreperson told the judge a single juror would not follow the court’s instructions about reasonable doubt.

The extraordinary disclosure made in the form of a note delivered to the judge offered the clearest glimpse yet of what may be keeping jurors from reaching a verdict on whether the Massachusetts mother is criminally responsible for killing her three children.

James Elmore Jr sentenced in death of Laura Miller, whose body was found in 1986 in notorious ‘Texas Killing Fields’

A man found guilty in the death of teenager Laura Miller, whose body was recovered in 1986 in the notorious so-called “Texas Killing Fields”, was given a 20-year prison sentence on Thursday.

James Elmore Jr received that punishment from a Galveston county jury that a day earlier had convicted him of manslaughter in connection with Laura Miller’s death, which inspired her father, Tim Miller, to launch Texas EquuSearch, a non-profit organization specializing in searching for missing people.

State decides to proceed hours after Trump administration asks supreme court to let it carry out proposed crackdown

North Carolina became the first state to start sending out mail-in ballots for November’s US midterm elections on Friday, as Donald Trump’s administration fights to impose sweeping restrictions on the practice before millions of Americans cast their votes.

The state’s decision to proceed – hours after Trump’s officials asked the supreme court to let the administration press ahead with its proposed crackdown – comes amid deep uncertainty over whether new federal rules governing mail ballots will be allowed to take effect, and whether the US Postal Service can implement the changes in time.

Jeering and heckling are increasingly commonplace, even at grand slams, as spectators try to influence matches

Midway through the first week of the US Open a couple of years ago, Jiri Lehecka’s attempts to find his form were disrupted by incessant taunting from a spectator close by. “There was a guy who sat just behind my bench on a smaller court, court four, and he was talking to me basically for the first three sets, like non-stop,” Lehecka says. “He was talking to me like: ‘You can’t do it. You are tired. He’s better than you are.’”

Lehecka maintained his composure and closed out the match, but even as he focused on navigating the intense stress of competition, he believed he understood this spectator’s motivations. The spectator, he thinks, was not there just to cheer for his favourite player: he was a bettor who had put money on Lehecka to lose. He had entered court four solely to influence the outcome of the match.

Defending champions Carlos Alcaraz and Aryna Sabalenka progressed alongside other top seeds in Friday’s third-round matches

Leylah Fernandez has broken Pegula early, taking a 2-0 lead in the first. You might recall that Fernandez was Emma Raducanu’s opponent in the 2021 US Open final; since losing that match, the Canadian has only gone past the third round at a slam once (the 2022 French Open, where she made the quarter-finals) but has won five WTA Tour titles and is a consistent presence in the world’s top 30. So which career path would you prefer: hers or Raducanu’s?

Sabalenka takes the first set 6-3, remaining dominant against an opponent who is playing decent stuff. Marta Kostyuk also claims the first set 6-3 over Alexandrova, while Sorana Cirstea has claimed the opener against Paolini by the same score. That feels like an upset, even though Cirstea is seeded higher – No 16 to Paolini’s 19.

Number of new jobs being added has been fluctuating, with private companies adding 38,000 jobs in August

The US economy added 162,000 jobs in August, an uptick after a sluggish summer for the labor market.

The unemployment rate held steady at 4.1%, still down from its most recent peak of 4.5% last November, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Despite the relative stability of the unemployment rate, the number of new jobs added to the economy has been fluctuating, going from 214,000 in March down to a 21,000 gain in July and then back up in August.

Senator releases letters from armed forces after reports of location data being used to track US troops in Middle East

US military officials say they have disabled advertising trackers on a range of phones and computers, according to letters released on Friday by the US senator Ron Wyden and ⁠statements given to Reuters.

The development follows reports ​that commercially available location data had been used to target American forces in the Middle East.

Christa Pike’s planned execution is emblematic of America’s broken death penalty system

On 30 September, the state of Tennessee plans to put Christa Pike to death. She would be the third person brought to the death chamber in the Volunteer state this year, one of which was stopped after it was botched.

She would join 17 others who have been put to death there since 1960. None of them were women.

Want to see how small the gene pool of Tory talent is? I give you Andrew Griffith as shadow chancellor. Also this week: Starmer’s Fomo, and telly wars

It’s the end of summer and Kemi Badenoch chose to mark the occasion with a reshuffle of her shadow cabinet. Her aim is apparently to get the Tories match fit in case Andy Burnham calls an early general election, but the vibes are much more rearranging the deckchairs on a sinking ship. After all, when the gene pool of talent is that small, there’s not much you can do. James Cleverly got the ball rolling by announcing he was planning to be the Conservative candidate for London mayor in two years’ time. He may have his work cut out. London is a liberal, multicultural city and unlikely to be won over by a party giving up on net zero and the European convention on human rights.

In the California City facility, ‘contact visits’ are strictly forbidden – but detained residents aren’t staying quiet. Are officials listening?

Teresa Reyes drove 300 miles to be with her son on his 32nd birthday in May, but she couldn’t give him a gift, share a meal with him or give him a hug. She couldn’t even touch him.

Her son, Guillermo, a tattoo artist from San Jose, is locked up in the California City immigration detention center, California’s largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility, and the only way he can see his mother is behind a thick pane of glass.

Vice-president’s claim US-Iran conflict is not war draws ridicule from Democrat Ro Khanna. Plus, iconic feminist Gloria Steinem dies aged 92

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Good morning. The US vice-president, JD Vance, has responded to claims that an American strike was responsible for killing four people, including a child, at a wedding celebration in southern Iran by saying that “sometimes things happen”. The deaths were reported by the Iranian Red Crescent, which operates independently of Tehran and is treated by most international monitors as a credible source on casualty figures.

In a further comment, described by the congressman Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, as “gaslighting”, the vice-president said the conflict between the US and Iran, which has stretched into a seventh month and caused the deaths of 18 US service members, was not presently “a war”. Iranian authorities have put the overall death toll from US and Israeli strikes in the thousands, figures outside observers, including US-based monitoring groups, have broadly corroborated.

What did Vance say? At a White House press briefing he said: “I will say that the Iranian state media has not been a very good scribe about what’s happened in the conflict thus far, so I’m extremely skeptical of this. What I can say with 100% confidence is that, unlike the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the US never targets civilians in combat. We never will do that. We never have done that, and unfortunately, obviously, sometimes things happen”. Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to blow up Iran’s civilian infrastructure.

What is happening with US military leadership? Trump on Thursday named Adam Telle as the acting army secretary after the departure of Daniel Driscoll amid widespread reports of tensions with the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth. Telle is currently the assistant secretary of the army for civil works.

What has the House decided about university boycotts of Israel? The House has passed a Republican-backed bill that would penalize universities that participate in boycotts of Israel. “This legislation is about a simple principle: our colleges and universities should not discriminate against Israel,” said Tim Walberg, the Republican chair of the House education committee. Thirty three Democrats broke with the rest of their party to vote in favor. It now goes to the Senate for consideration.

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President Trump threatened in a social media post on Friday to stop trade with some countries unless the US Federal Reserve moves to cut interest rates.

Trump cited August’s strong jobs report as sufficient justification to lower rates, and warned that, if the central bank didn’t go along, he’d halt trade between the US and any nations with which it maintains a trade deficit.

The CEO is the throughline in a history of billion-dollar blunders that have caused real harm, culminating in last week’s settlement

Last week, Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, agreed to a settlement of up to $18bn after dozens of US states accused it of harming children with addictive products. The settlement’s regulatory implications for social media will affect every user, far beyond teens.

But if Meta is truly interested in prioritizing the safety of users, the board should request the resignation of Mark Zuckerberg and restructure to put safety above profit.

Private equity firms and the companies they own employ over 13 million, from startups to rural hospitals and large retailers, but experts’ concerns of collapse are growing

Retail stalwarts Saks and Eddie Bauer filed for bankruptcy. Kmart and JoAnn Fabrics are gone for good, a trail of layoffs and disappointed customers in their wake. Hospital giant Steward Health Care collapsed, costing thousands of jobs and leaving several communities without a local hospital.

These once-trusted US companies have one thing in common: they were owned by private equity investors, who load companies with debt when they buy them and squeeze out profits as they restructure.

Valuation above $11bn expected for firm whose fans include Prince Harry, Jennifer Aniston and Kim Kardashian

Fans of Oura are accustomed to using its trendy smart rings to fastidiously monitor their health but now investors are preparing to track a new metric: its share price.

The company’s filing to list imminently on the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York was made public on Thursday.

Recruiting ex-pros. Inflaming Ukraine-Russia tensions. Suing the SEC and being sued back. The school is adapting to a new reality – and also creating a new one

In 1893, a chemistry professor named Charles Coates arrived at Louisiana State University and wrote that, to his surprise, “there was practically no athletics in the student body: no football, no tennis, and only very little baseball in the spring.” A broad program of sports struck him as the kind of thing a school should have, particularly as US universities were beginning to tout intercollegiate athletics as critical to a balanced higher-ed experience and another way to justify the cost of entry. But 133 years on, sports aren’t merely the main attraction at LSU. They’re the school’s raison d’être, the blinkered obsession that consumes the university and its most prominent ambassadors.

Any doubt that the business of educating college students is just a nettlesome distraction from the business of college sports in Baton Rouge has been emphatically dispelled over the past 10 months. On the football side, the school has spent or committed roughly $162m to its last three head coaches: Ed Orgeron, the folksy national champion in 2019 who received a $17m buyout when he was fired two years later; Brian Kelly, the unloved underachiever who received a $54m buyout after being fired last October; and Lane Kiffin, the Kelly replacement whom it signed to a $91m deal a month later. Clemson, the opponent for LSU’s season opener at home on Saturday, are about to find out what all that money buys.

Intensification of Middle East conflict and ongoing Russian export ban leads to diesel prices rising 10% in less than a week

Farmers are facing an “astronomical” jump in the price of fuel needed to operate their vehicles and machinery after a surge in diesel costs in the UK and the US.

Renewed fighting between the US and Iran has driven up the price of crude oil, while last week Russia extended a ban on diesel exports, further pushing up market prices.

Have you been following the big stories in football, cricket, tennis, boxing, Formula One and cycling?

Seven years after springing one of the biggest upsets in boxing history, the Mexican Rocky is back with his old trainer for one final run at the heavyweight summit

Seven years ago, Andy Ruiz Jr became the first fighter of Mexican descent to win the world heavyweight championship in one of the biggest upsets boxing has ever seen, stopping the undefeated Anthony Joshua inside seven rounds at Madison Square Garden.

A replacement opponent summoned on five weeks’ notice who went off as an 11-1 underdog, Ruiz came off the canvas in the third to knock Joshua down four times before the referee finally waved it off. Hailed as the “Mexican Rocky”, he was lionized as a border-straddling hero in his hometown of Imperial, the dusty agricultural community framed by the mountain ranges and flat deserts of south-eastern California. He made the late-night rounds, took an audience with Mexico president Andrés Manuel López Obrador and signed a $10m guarantee when Joshua activated his rematch clause. The money, cars, fame and women arrived all at once.

Republican candidate Thomas Ross and former campaign manager allegedly devised plan to stash drugs in rival Louise Secker’s purse or vehicle

A Missouri House race has been rocked by the Wednesday arrest of Republican candidate Thomas Ross, whom prosecutors accuse of attempting to frame his primary opponent Louise Secker for cocaine possession.

In June, Ross allegedly gave his former campaign manager, identified by the initials “CS” in court documents, a bag of cocaine and Adderall. The two allegedly devised a plan for the former manager to stash the drugs in Secker’s purse or vehicle.

Telle has previously worked for Trump during his first term as a special assistant to the president for legislative affairs

Donald Trump on Thursday named Adam Telle as the acting army secretary after the departure of Daniel Driscoll amid widespread reports of tensions with defense secretary Pete Hegseth.

Telle is currently the assistant secretary of the army for civil works.

Sean Alfortish and Leon Parker convicted on some counts but not murder charges linked to insurance fraud plot

A federal jury in New Orleans on Thursday returned a split verdict after more than 30 hours of deliberations in a three-week-long blockbuster fraud and murder trial that garnered headlines far beyond Louisiana.

Jurors deadlocked on murder charges Sean Alfortish and Leon “Chunky” Parker faced, leading US district judge Wendy Vitter to declare a mistrial as prosecutors vowed to try the case on those counts again.

Setback for Republicans in redistricting battle as court forbids maps from being used in November elections

The Missouri supreme court has unanimously blocked new congressional districts backed by Donald Trump from being used in the November election and ordered a statewide vote on whether to uphold or reject the new map.

The decision Thursday marks a rare setback for Republicans in a national redistricting battle. Republicans had hoped Missouri’s new congressional boundaries could help them win an additional seat and hold on to their slim House majority in the midterms. The ruling still could be appealed to the US supreme court.

Firefighters hollowed out a dumpster truck and lifted a man from trash and debris after bystanders alerted driver to screams

San Francisco fire officials manually hollowed out a garbage truck early on Wednesday to rescue a man trapped inside.

Firefighters were dispatched around 4.11am after receiving a report of an individual stuck inside a Recology dumpster truck, authorities said.

Supreme court ruled in June against president’s earlier order to change citizenship rules for babies born in US

A federal judge has temporarily blocked Donald Trump’s latest attempt to restrict birthright citizenship – the longstanding principle that all babies born in the US are guaranteed American citizenship.

The decision came nearly a month after the president tried for a second time to limit via executive order which people born in the US can become American citizens. The supreme court ruled in late June that Trump’s previous sweeping order denying birthright citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants or temporary visitors was unconstitutional.

Project that critics say will disrupt historic sightlines in Washington DC is facing a lawsuit

The Trump administration said on Thursday that excavation work will start over the next two weeks on the site where it plans to build a towering, gilded arch, a project that is facing a lawsuit and that critics say will disrupt historic sightlines in Washington DC.

The proposed arch is one of several projects the Republican president is pursuing to leave his lasting imprint on Washington, including renaming and renovating the Kennedy Center, building a huge new White House ballroom, refurbishing the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool and rebuilding a golf course in East Potomac Park that could significantly reduce the public’s access to running and biking paths.

The vice-president says he’s ‘extremely skeptical’ of Iran reports when asked whether US was responsible for deaths

The US vice-president, JD Vance, said “sometimes things happen” when asked on Thursday whether an American strike was responsible for killing four people, including a child, at a wedding celebration in southern Iran this week.

The strike hit Kuhestak, a town in Sirik county on the strait of Hormuz. The toll was reported not by the Iranian government but by the Iranian Red Crescent, a member of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement that operates independently of Tehran and is generally treated by international monitors as a credible source on casualty figures.