Justices’ 5-4 ruling permits Trump administration appeal to block lower court order halting above-ground work

A divided US supreme court has permitted Donald Trump to continue building his controversial $400m White House ballroom despite legal challenges, raising the likelihood it will be completed.

In a 5-4 ruling, the justices permitted the Trump administration’s request to ⁠block a lower court order which had halted above-ground construction of the project while a lawsuit by a historic preservation group seeks to block it.

RFK Jr, the health secretary, has suggested the deaths were ‘fabricated’ while the CDC claimed it was reviewing them

Top US health officials and government agencies are currently not including the two recent measles-associated deaths in Pennsylvania in their counts.

“This is highly unusual,” said Debra Houry, former chief medical officer of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She noted that this did not happen with the three deaths reported from measles in Texas and New Mexico last year.

RFK Jr, the health secretary, has suggested the deaths were ‘fabricated’ while the CDC claimed it was reviewing them

Top US health officials and government agencies are currently not including the two recent measles-associated deaths in Pennsylvania in their counts.

“This is highly unusual,” said Debra Houry, former chief medical officer of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She noted that this did not happen with the three deaths reported from measles in Texas and New Mexico last year.

Santos was accused of profiting from bets tied to his attendance at Trump’s State of the Union address

George Santos, the former Republican congressman whose political career collapsed under a mountain of lies, has become the first person ever handed a lifetime ban by the prediction-market platform Kalshi.

The company announced the permanent suspension on Monday, along with a $71,356 fine, after federal regulators accused Santos of profiting from bets tied to his own attendance at Donald Trump’s State of the Union address earlier this year.

Santos was accused of profiting from bets tied to his attendance at Trump’s State of the Union address

George Santos, the former Republican congressman whose political career collapsed under a mountain of lies, has become the first person ever handed a lifetime ban by the prediction-market platform Kalshi.

The company announced the permanent suspension on Monday, along with a $71,356 fine, after federal regulators accused Santos of profiting from bets tied to his own attendance at Donald Trump’s State of the Union address earlier this year.

Lander screamed at and verbally abused as he protested against Hindu nationalist rally in Madison Square Garden

The New York Democratic congressional nominee Brad Lander was screamed at and verbally abused by protesters over his stance on Israel as he protested against a Hindu nationalist politician speaking outside Madison Square Garden.

As Lander attended a demonstration on Saturday against the event, organized by the Hindu nationalist RSS movement and where Mohan Bhagwat, leader of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh was speaking, he was confronted by several protesters demanding that he leave the rally.

Three-quarters of Americans said in a recent poll that they oppose datacenters being built next to their homes

Donald Trump has criticized communities pushing back against datacenter projects across the US amid a growing backlash, warning those that reject them risk becoming “backwards and poor”.

As controversy surrounding local datacenter plans continues to swirl around election campaigns nationwide ahead of November’s midterm elections, the US president declared Americans “will only have yourselves to blame” if they are canceled.

Congressman says Thomas abandoned his principles to become an extremist, hard-right member of bench

The senior Democratic congressman James Clyburn said his decision to support Clarence Thomas for a US supreme court seat “was a mistake” and called for the expansion of the nation’s highest legal panel to 13 justices.

Clyburn, of South Carolina, spoke up for Thomas at his fiery 1991 confirmation hearings, calling him “a personal and professional friend” who would use their shared experiences lifting minorities and advancing civil rights to become a respected and accomplished jurist.

Response seeks to discredit Washington Post story that four generals and admirals advised against prolonging Iran war

Pete Hegseth regularly receives formal objections from senior commanders and proceeds anyway, the Pentagon’s top spokesman has said, as he tried to discredit a Washington Post report that four generals and admirals had advised against prolonging the war in Iran.

“Of course, we demand candid military advice,” Sean Parnell wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Non-concurs are standard. The Secretary sees them constantly. That’s how you run a real military.”

After Lindsey Graham’s death, Democrat Annie Andrews finds herself in a closely watched race as she seeks to flip his Republican seat

Annie Andrews was a dark horse Democrat challenging a five-term Republican in the US Senate when 314 Action, a political action fund devoted to electing scientists and doctors, first backed her.

Now, after the unexpected death of Senator Lindsey Graham, Andrews finds herself in a closely watched race. Donald Trump persuaded South Carolina voters last week to select Graham’s sister, Darline, as the new Republican candidate. They will face off in November in an election still heavily favored to keep the seat in Republican hands in the conservative state.

US trade representative Jamieson Greer has a level-headed reputation but commerce secretary Howard Lutnick and White House adviser Peter Navarro also have key roles

Having reportedly read Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, in French, during a military tour of duty in Iraq, Jamieson Greer considered himself an unlikely target for accusations of francophobia.

But Donald Trump’s US trade representative, hitherto one of the president’s less high-profile cabinet members, found himself in that uncomfortable position amid the acrimonious collapse of bilateral trade talks with Canada that now threatens to degenerate into an all-out trade war between the two close trading partners whose economies are tightly intertwined.

Trump officials shuttering three projects on foodborne parasite, two defunded by Congress, Politico reports

The Trump administration is shuttering ⁠two of the three US Department of Agriculture research projects studying cyclospora after the foodborne parasite has ⁠sickened tens of thousands of Americans during the summer, Politico reported on Sunday.

The two projects were defunded by Congress earlier in the year, while the third is ⁠due to be moved in coming months from Maryland to Iowa as part of a broader USDA reorganization, according to the ⁠report.

Tom Homan denies British far-right commentator, who was deported one day after arrest, got preferential treatment

The White House “border czar,” Tom Homan, denied on Sunday that deporting British far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos just a day after being arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) amounted to preferential treatment.

Homan said it was his understanding that Yiannopoulos, 41, had overstayed what he believed to be a visitor visa, had not appeared at an immigration hearing and was issued a final order of removal on 22 July.

Trump’s threat comes after host described success record of candidates whom president had endorsed as ‘mixed’

Donald Trump ⁠on Sunday said NBC’s Kristen ‌Welker – host of Meet the Press – should face “rebuke or punishment” from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Welker, during a live segment for a local Washington, DC, affiliate, described the success record of political candidates whom the president had endorsed as “mixed”. The segment aired prior to Sunday’s edition of Meet the Press.

Meanwhile, Trump posts video of himself kicking over a Lake Ontario sign and replacing it with Lake America sign

Donald Trump and Canada continued a verbal duel on Saturday over the US government’s administrative renaming of Lake Ontario, with the Ontario premier erecting a giant sign saying “Lake Ontario. Now and Always” – and the American president posting a video of him tearing down an avatar of that sign, erecting a replacement saying Lake America, and dancing to YMCA.

Rhetoric over the naming of Lake Ontario is the public face of an escalating trade dispute between the US and its northern neighbor involving a 50% US tariff on Canadian steel and retaliatory tariffs from Ottawa.

Meanwhile, Trump posts video of himself kicking over a Lake Ontario sign and replacing it with Lake America sign

Donald Trump and Canada continued a verbal duel on Saturday over the US government’s administrative renaming of Lake Ontario, with the Ontario premier erecting a giant sign saying “Lake Ontario. Now and Always” – and the American president posting a video of him tearing down an avatar of that sign, erecting a replacement saying Lake America, and dancing to YMCA.

Rhetoric over the naming of Lake Ontario is the public face of an escalating trade dispute between the US and its northern neighbor involving a 50% US tariff on Canadian steel and retaliatory tariffs from Ottawa.

Patients are showing up ‘later and sicker’ for abortion care as more US states adopt bans and significant restrictions

Providers are seeing more patients in need of abortions later in pregnancy as abortion bans and restrictions proliferate in US states, all while access to insurance falls.

Those bans and restrictions have also meant that later abortion care access has grown over the past decade in a handful of haven states and cities.

Democratic Senate nominee is eager to push past series of controversies involving allegations of antisemitism

Michigan’s Democratic US senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed apologized to the state’s Jewish Democratic Caucus on Saturday for comments he made after an attack on a synagogue in March, which he tied to Israel’s actions in the Middle East.

“My comments may have been misconstrued to justify something I did not mean to justify,” El-Sayed told reporters after he addressed the caucus at a party convention in Lansing. “To anyone who feels like my comments might have been hurtful, I’m really sorry. That was not my intention.”

Widely used chemical TBBPA may present a danger to US public, and especially children, independent research finds

The Environmental Protection Agency is manipulating safety data around a highly toxic flame retardant deployed across the US economy, public health advocates allege.

The chemical, TBBPA, has been found in dust in US homes and in consumer goods at combined levels that independent research has found may present a danger to the public, and especially small children.

The movement against datacenters is uniting Americans because they perfectly illustrate how a few individuals hold all the power to control decisions that affect our lives

Bryce Gustafson has been knocking on doors in Indiana for more than a decade. The lead organizer with Citizens Action Coalition (CAC), a consumer and environmental organization, he usually encounters a mix of reactions when he’s out canvassing; whatever issue he’s talking about, there’s always at least a few people on the other side. But at a recent festival in the rural town of Monrovia, Indiana, he was struck by an unusual spirit of unity.

He was there about a proposed datacenter, a 550-acre (222-hectare) Google project in this small town of 1,600 people. “I had 50 people I talked to,” Gustafson told me. “Nobody wanted that datacenter in their community. And at least a half a dozen people came up to me to say, ‘Hey, I voted for Trump. What the heck’s he doing, supporting these things?’”