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Taylor Fritz and Flavio Cobolli lost from winning positions, Madison Keys collapsed from 5-0 up in the final set, but Coco Gauff, Iga Swiatek and Mirra Andreeva reached the last 16Last night Serena and Venus Williams - with their combined age of 456 - blew a five-point lead in the deciding tie-break as their return to the grand slam doubles stage ended in defeat, 6-3, 6-7 (6), 7-6 (7) against Chan Hao-ching and Maya Joint. Serena must be sick of the sight of Joint - given her singles comeback was also halted by the Australian in the Wimbledon first round this summer - but having come so close to victory in both matches, she may well be encouraged enough to continue. Serena and Venus chose not to do a post-match media conference last night - so it's not clear what their next plans are.A big cheer on Grandstand - despite the fact Zheng is facing an American - as she holds at the start of the second set. Anisimova is still a break down, 3-2, against Potapova, while Taylor Fritz - the pick of the American men in the first week - is warming up on Arthur Ashe against Francisco Cerundolo, the 24th seed from Argentina. Continue reading...

Latest data from Gallup, showing 49% leaning Democrat and 39% Republican, marks sharp reversal from 2024More voters are identifying as Democrats and shying away from calling themselves Republican, according to the latest quarterly data published by Gallup.Some 49% of voters surveyed leaned Democrat, including independent voters asked to pick one party or the other. Only 39% of respondents leaned Republican. Continue reading...

Leading second-wave feminist co-founded Women's Media Center with Jane Fonda and Gloria SteinemRobin Morgan, a child star of the 1940s and 50s who grew up to become an all-American radical as a poet, essayist, editor and second-wave feminist, has died. She was 85.Morgan's death was confirmed Saturday by the Women's Media Center, an organization she co-founded with Jane Fonda and the celebrated author and activist Gloria Steinem, who died Wednesday. Continue reading...

Judge issues order as part of discovery process in lawsuit brought by non-profit into now defunct compensation fundA federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to reveal who set up the structure of a controversial $1.8bn anti-weaponization fund" to recompense victims of so-called political lawfare that was reportedly dropped by the justice department last month.Ivan Davis, the US magistrate judge for the eastern district of Virginia, issued the order compelling discovery materials from the government as part of a lawsuit brought by the Democracy Forward non-profit on behalf of plaintiffs including a fired prosecutor and a college professor acquitted of assaulting federal agents at a protest against an immigration raid in California. Continue reading...

The coastal community in California had already been devastated by landslides and wildfires before a fatal crashCalifornia's rugged Big Sur coastline is often called a slice of heaven, 120 miles (195km) of unspoiled rocky promontories, sandy beaches and redwood forests at the foot of the Santa Lucia mountains. This year, it has endured a long summer of hell.Wildfires, road closures and repeated disruptions to the local hotel, restaurant and campsite businesses all have posed significant challenges in an era of climate change and unpredictable weather patterns. One large fire broke out in the highlands east of Big Sur in early August and is still less than 25% contained. A second fire erupted 30 miles to the south two weeks later and is so inaccessible to firefighters that it has grown bigger than the first and is barely contained at all. Continue reading...

Todd Blanche's remarks are part of a totally-not-invented moral panic that stretches the limits of the imaginationBeing a public school teacher in the US these days is tough. You've got to pay for a lot of your own supplies, deal with smartphone-addicted children, and perform gender reassignment surgeries in your lunch break.Luckily our intrepid attorney general, Todd Blanche, is on the case. Blanche appeared on Fox News this week to decry a pandemic" of gender transitions in schools across the US. There's not a parent in America, no matter where you live, that would want their school to change and call their child by a different name and not expect to be told about that. We partnered with the Department of Education recently to combat this very trend and, really, pandemic that's happening in some school districts around the country," Blanche said. He seemed more concerned with name changes than with surgery, but the president himself has suggested on several occasions that schools are furtively doing surgery on children. During a campaign speech in 2024, for example, Donald Trump said: Can you imagine ... your son leaves the house and you say: Jimmy, I love you so much. Go have a good day in school,' and your son comes back with a brutal operation? Can you even imagine this?"Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

District attorney must decide whether to retry case after jury's failure to reach verdict despite hours of deliberationLindsay Clancy, prosecutors, defense lawyers, the judge and millions watching on are back where they started after her five-week trial over the murder of her three children ended in a mistrial.America's saddest case has ceased for the moment, but the legal wrangling is not over, and a second trial could now be on the horizon, prolonging and repeating an agonizing spectacle that has gripped America and the world. Continue reading...

Activists are calling on the state attorney general to take action against hospitals that have ended gender-affirming care programs after Trump retook officeA group of trans activists from across Massachusetts brought their needles, hormone gels, pills and sharps containers to Boston on Wednesday to send a message to state attorney general Andrea Campbell.Organizers with the youth-led group Protect Trans Futures (PTF) took their hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in the lobby of her office building, then occupied the space, refusing to leave without a commitment to protect civil rights for trans kids. Continue reading...

A storm lasting about 30 minutes wreaked $18m in damage leaving tens of thousands without power in the US cityThe storm that hit the Memphis, Tennessee, area on 22 August lingered for only about half an hour. But the destruction it left was lasting: $18m in damages, fallen trees and more than 100,000 people without power.Amber Sherman was one of the east Memphis residents who lost power, but her first thoughts were of her neighbors. My main thought was that the power's going to be out for a while and people aren't prepared for that and it's very hot outside," Sherman, a coordinator for Black Voters Matter (BVM) in Memphis, said. Days after the storm, a series of rain showers and thunderstorms known as a bow echo storm, the high in Memphis was 91F (32.8C). Tens of thousands of households were still without power. Continue reading...

Exclusive: court orders seen by Guardian show agency given approval to fit Texas detainee with tube without his consentFederal immigration officials quietly received permission from a judge in recent weeks to force-feed a detained Cuban hunger striker inside a Texas detention center, including with the use of a rare, nonconsensual surgical procedure, court records reveal.The man is likely the 19th hunger striker in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention where the agency has had an application approved to conduct involuntary medical procedures" since January 2025. The rising number of cases under the second Trump administration has alarmed advocates amid wide-ranging accusations of mistreatment inside facilities nationwide. Continue reading...

A new study offers more evidence that America's biggest sport produces life-altering head trauma. The NFL will never turn itself off, so it's on fans to do soAs a new NFL season begins this Wednesday, the danger of America's most-watched sport has never been more clear.A new and widely circulated study published in the British Journal of Medicine examined the donated brains of former NFL players who died between 2016 and 2021 and compared them with the overall number of players who died during that period. Of the 235 donated brains in that period, 215 had evidence of the degenerative brain condition chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). That group of 215 comprised 24.5% of the former players who died during that period in total. Given the finding, the study's authors estimate that the prevalence of CTE among players who died in that period was at minimum 24.5% to a maximum of 97.7%, with the actual rate likely somewhere in between.Nathan Kalman-Lamb is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of New Brunswick. Derek Silva is Associate Professor of Sociology and Criminology at King's University College at Western University.In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org Continue reading...

Progressive candidates navigate their ties to the DSA as the group faces historic growth and mounting pressureDays before he won the Democratic primary for US Senate in Michigan, insurgent newcomer Abdul El-Sayed was asked whether he was concerned about being labeled a socialist".I'd rather think of myself as a capitalist who has actually read about capitalism," El-Sayed told CBS News anchor Ed O'Keefe. I'm not a socialist." Continue reading...

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Defending champions Carlos Alcaraz and Aryna Sabalenka progressed alongside other top seeds in Friday's third-round matchesLeylah 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. Continue reading...

Jeffrey Mosteller pleaded no contest to charges relating to burning death of Thomas Cooper in MichiganA 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. Continue reading...

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' Continue reading...

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

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

Labor department report alleges Lori Chavez-DeRemer also made a staffer attend a strip club while on a personal tripDonald 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. Continue reading...

From mortgages to inflation, concerns about the public finances of major economies have wide-reaching consequencesWhen 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. Continue reading...

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 votersWhat 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 Continue reading...

Officers clipped to bridge had tried to talk man, who was holding a knife, into coming down safely, officials sayNew 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. Continue reading...

Number of new jobs being added has been fluctuating, with private companies adding 38,000 jobs in AugustThe 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. Continue reading...

Christa Pike's planned execution is emblematic of America's broken death penalty systemOn 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. Continue reading...

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 warsIt'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. Continue reading...

Jeering and heckling are increasingly commonplace, even at grand slams, as spectators try to influence matchesMidway 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. Continue reading...

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. Continue reading...

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

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 oneIn 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'etre, 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. Continue reading...

Intensification of Middle East conflict and ongoing Russian export ban sees diesel prices rise 10% in less than a weekFarmers 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 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. Continue reading...

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 summitSeven 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 Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and signed a $10m guarantee when Joshua activated his rematch clause. The money, cars, fame and women arrived all at once. Continue reading...

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Republican candidate Thomas Ross and former campaign manager allegedly devised plan to stash drugs in rival Louise Secker's purse or vehicleA 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. Continue reading...

Telle has previously worked for Trump during his first term as a special assistant to the president for legislative affairsDonald 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. Continue reading...

Sean Alfortish and Leon Parker convicted on some counts but not murder charges linked to insurance fraud plotA 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. Continue reading...

Cull of animals that eat native shrubs, causing spread of fast-igniting grasses, to go ahead despite fierce oppositionLocals and tourists have long fawned over Catalina Island's mule deer population. For nearly a century, the ungulates have roamed the land's waterfronts and woodlands, so comfortable around humans that it is not uncommon to spot deer roaming downtown Avalon.But that sight will soon disappear, after a judge this week paved the way for the island's conservancy to kill nearly all the island's 2,000 deer. Continue reading...

Auger-Aliassime lost in the second round, as did Musetti against Australia's Dane Sweeny, but Fritz, Swiatek and Andreeva won in straight sets and Osaka survived in threeIt feels rather odd saying this, given that Osaka is a two-time former US Open champion, but she's something of a wildcard contender this fortnight, having not won a title since 2021. But over the past year she's been building momentum, after returning from her maternity leave in 2024, and there were plenty of green shoots on the grass at Wimbledon, where she beat Aryna Sabalenka en route to the quarter-finals. And Osaka has started strongly today, leading Siniakova 3-1 and serving at 40-15. Make that game, as the 13th seed's pace is too much for the Czech to handle.Swiatek is serving for the first set at 5-3. And on her second set point, at her advantage, she takes it, when Podoroska prods a return wide. After starting with three holds to love, the set got closer, but the eighth seed found a way through and she's skipping to the back of the court to start the second set. She looks up for this - and most importantly, more confident than she has done for so much of this year. Continue reading...

Setback for Republicans in redistricting battle as court forbids maps from being used in November electionsThe 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. Continue reading...

Firefighters hollowed out a dumpster truck and lifted a man from trash and debris after bystanders alerted driver to screamsSan 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. Continue reading...

Supreme court ruled in June against president's earlier order to change citizenship rules for babies born in USA 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. Continue reading...

Project that critics say will disrupt historic sightlines in Washington DC is facing a lawsuitThe 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. Continue reading...