Tug of war as federal judge says old maps cannot be used in November, hours after supreme court blocked new maps backed by Trump

Clashing court rulings plunged Missouri’s congressional elections into uncertainty on Tuesday, the latest in a legal tug-of-war that comes less than two months before the November midterms that will decide which party controls a closely divided Congress.

First, the conservative justice Brett Kavanaugh denied the emergency request from Missouri officials to use a congressional map in November that was redrawn with Donald Trump’s support to give Republicans an edge in the midterms.

Officials say sighting a sign species – driven to extinction in state before reintroduction in 2011 – expanding its range

A gray wolf has recently been seen in California’s Mendocino national forest for the first time since the species returned to the state 15 years ago, state wildlife officials confirmed.

Officials in Lake county, which is about two hours north of San Francisco, said last week the California department of fish and wildlife (CDFW) had received reports of sightings in the forest in late August. The agency verified the presence of a wolf in the far north end of the county, county supervisor Brad Rasmussen said in a statement on social media.

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• Missouri congressional maps thrown into chaos after conflicting court rulings

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Further down the ballot in New Hampshire, the Democratic primary for Chris Pappas’s House seat has drawn eight candidates, with Stefany Shaheen – daughter of the outgoing senator – and Maura Sullivan, a former Obama administration official, leading the field.

The district, long purple, has been reliably blue since 2017. Republicans now see it as flippable, and Donald Trump has endorsed Anthony DiLorenzo, a businessman who owns several car dealerships, in the GOP race.

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Republican oversight chair James Comer has also weighed in on Leon Black not sitting for a deposition about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. The billionaire financier, who has denied wrongdoing, filed suit against the oversight committee Thursday alleging the subpoenas were improper.

“It’s a shame Leon Black is hiding behind litigation rather than provide answers to the American people. Our investigation is examining how the federal government for decades failed survivors of Jeffery Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s crimes and how Mr. Epstein sought to curry favor with influential individuals to avoid scrutiny,” Comer said in a statement. “Mr. Black’s testimony is crucial to our investigation as he was one of Mr. Epstein’s fee paying clients and has several nondisclosure agreements.”

President’s order strips nearly 3m acres of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, sacred tribal sites, of safeguards

Patagonia, the outdoor clothing and gear company, has joined a lawsuit challenging Donald Trump’s decision to significantly reduce the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah, removing protections from nearly 3m acres.

In July, the president approved the reduction of the sites by 90%, clearing the way to open the land to oil and gas companies. He argued in his proclamations that doing so would allow lands to be “put to a higher-priority use” and that they contained critical minerals important to “resource independence …[and] national security”.

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As tensions flare in the mideast with American military forces resuming strikes on Iran, Donald Trump has taken to social media to discuss his ballroom project.

“We have hundreds of happy construction workers in D.C. busily doing their job building the finest Ballroom/Military complex anywhere in the World,” Trump said in a truth social post Wednesday morning. “There is nothing like it, and never will be! It was a long, hard, fight in the Court System, but the winner is, as always under ‘TRUMP,’ the U.S.A.”

Suspect Tyler Robinson to be tried for aggravated murder, felony charge that carries death penalty sentence in Utah

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A Utah judge ruled Tuesday that the man accused of killing Charlie Kirk must stand trial for aggravated murder, a felony charge that makes him eligible for the death penalty if convicted.

After several hours of closing arguments in Provo, Utah, judge Tony Graf ruled there is sufficient evidence to try Tyler Robinson, 23, who has been charged with the murder of one of the US right’s most prominent figures.

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• New system for screening mail-in ballots risks denying entire batches, says whistleblower

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Democratic senator Chuck Schumer is introducing a bill that would reverse Donald Trump’s most recent tariffs, among them the new 50% duty on Canadian goods, MS Now reported.

While the Senate minority leader’s proposed legislation has virtually no chance of becoming law, Schumer hopes that his proposal shows that Democrats are actively fighting the affordability crisis. Schumer first shared his proposed legislation with MS Now.

A Las Vegas jury on Monday found Duane ‘Keffe D’ Davis guilty in the 1996 murder of the hip-hop icon

• Jury finds Duane Davis guilty of murder of Tupac Shakur

Thirty years after the killing of Tupac Shakur, conspiracy theories and rumors about the perpetrator’s identity, one man has now been held criminally responsible for the rap icon’s death.

A Las Vegas jury convicted Duane “Keffe D” Davis, a 63-year-old former South Side Compton Crips gang leader, of murder for his role in the drive-by shooting. During the two-week long trial, prosecutors argued Davis was the “on-the-ground, on-site commander of the effort to kill Tupac” and had sought revenge after the musician was involved in a fight with his nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson.

Nevada-based Kingsbarn Realty Capital seeks to acquire land to construct private road to development outside park

The Trump administration is reportedly pushing to give a parcel of land inside Yosemite, the country’s first national park and one of its most popular, to a Nevada-based private developer.

Staff with the National Park Service have been exploring how the agency can give a quarter-mile parcel to a company operated by Kingsbarn Realty Capital, the news outlet Notus reported on Friday, citing agency documents and unnamed sources “directly familiar with discussions”.