Floridastate

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has approved the National Guard to expand its presence in Washington with military vehicles, boats and 60 military police cars. Troops will be able to carry rifles during some operations but not in Metro rail stations. The deployment follows President Donald Trump's initial National Guard deployment to the capital in August 2025.

Saint Louis forward Robbie Avila, the Atlantic 10 player of the year, has won a preliminary injunction allowing him to play a fifth season for the Billikens. The court ruling also grants Saint Louis a 16th roster spot for Avila until a trial, clearing him to play the entire season. Avila is one of many college athletes suing after the NCAA's 'five-for-five' rule was not applied to athletes from the 2022 class who had already exhausted their eligibility.

The US has charged Jacobo Abdala Bucaram-Pulley, son of Ecuador's former president, Jaime Estrada Medranda, a former member of Ecuador's National Assembly, and three other Ecuadorians with cocaine trafficking to the United States and Europe. According to prosecutors, they hid cocaine in containers carrying tuna and other seafood. US Attorney Jamie McDonald said the five defendants played a 'critical role' in turning Ecuador into a key transit point for the vast majority of cocaine sent to the US and Europe.

Archaeologists from Germany, Russia, Sweden and Switzerland excavated a royal tomb in southern Siberia and found evidence suggesting people used cannabis for psychoactive purposes at least 2,800 years ago. The discovery, at the Tunnug 1 site in the Uyuk Valley, predates previously known cannabis use in China by about 300 years. Analysis of preserved hair and seeds from the tomb showed both plant matter and human tissue contained active compounds in the same context, according to Gino Caspari of the University of Bern. Whether the cannabis was consumed through inhalation or ingestion remains unclear.

The House will decide next week whether to advance the Protect College Sports Act, which passed the Senate 77-22 last month. The bill regulates how college athletes are paid and protects Olympic sports. Democrats, who won at least 247 seats in recent elections and mostly oppose the bill, now hold greater influence in the lame-duck session beginning Monday.

The Trump administration has escalated its economic campaign against Cuba by issuing sanctions on several key sectors of the island's economy, including electronics, manufacturing, marine and technology. The sanctions also target Chinese-based suppliers to Cuba's military, specifically China National Electronic Import and Export Company and Beijing H&C Technologies, which the US accuses of procuring weapons and selling surveillance equipment to the Cuban government. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the sanctions aim to prevent Cuba's ruling elite from hoarding resources whilst the population faces blackouts and shortages.

Environmental and human rights groups have filed 14 legal complaints with European financial regulators and prosecutors against JBS, the world's largest meatpacker, accusing it and its financial advisers of facilitating money laundering linked to illegal Amazon deforestation in its Brazilian beef supply chain. The complaints were filed with authorities in Britain, Ireland, Germany and the Netherlands, along with a separate criminal referral to Dutch prosecutors. JBS said it has monitored cattle suppliers in the Amazon since 2010 using satellite imagery and geo-referencing.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer has vowed that Democrats will not allow President Trump to appoint a 'right-winger' to the Supreme Court if a vacancy arises during his presidency. Schumer said Democrats are 'not going to allow any crappy nominees' to be confirmed to the Supreme Court, lower courts or Trump's Cabinet. He declined to say whether Democrats would leave a Supreme Court seat vacant until after the next presidential election, as former Republican leader Mitch McConnell did in 2016.

A 76-foot Norway spruce, approximately 75 years old, has been cut down in West Edmeston, upstate New York, and transported to Rockefeller Center in Midtown Manhattan. The tree will be dressed with over 50,000 LED lights and a 900-pound Swarovski star before its lighting ceremony on 2 December. After display until 9 January, it will be milled into lumber for Habitat for Humanity.

Federal prosecutors say FBI agent Andrew Reyes drove his government car the wrong way down Brooklyn's Ocean Parkway on 3 February, ran a red light and struck a pedestrian before fleeing. The 30-year-old has been arrested and charged with willfully depriving an individual of constitutional rights and making false statements. Prosecutors allege he later lied to investigators when asked whether he had hit someone and failed to report it.

An infant in southwestern Wisconsin has died from measles, marking the state's first death from the disease in 36 years, state officials announced Thursday. Vaccination rates have fallen below the 95 per cent coverage needed to prevent outbreaks. As of Thursday, Wisconsin had reported 431 measles cases, all but three in unvaccinated people, with nine hospitalisations.

President Donald Trump announced an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin on 9 October to make more than 300,000 metric tons of Russian diesel available to US and global markets. However, the plan is facing setbacks. Two tankers that departed from the Baltic Sea port of Primorsk and initially declared US East Coast destinations have changed course, with one heading to Brazil and another to the Mediterranean. State and federal officials have warned that handling Russian shipments could bring legal consequences. The arrangement has yet to produce a confirmed US delivery, and analysts say imports are unlikely to significantly lower US diesel prices.

A Mexican judge, Luiz Benítez Alcántara, has been arrested and accused of accepting $2 million in bribes to release Canadian drug trafficker Andrew Clark from custody. Benítez was overseeing extradition proceedings for Clark, who was charged in the US with helping to run a billion-dollar drug trafficking operation allegedly headed by former Canadian Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding. Clark was arrested days after his release and now faces drug trafficking and murder charges in the US.

New York's Strand Bookstore will repay nearly $1.5 million after improperly receiving a pandemic-era small business loan, the U.S. Department of Justice has announced. The bookstore was ineligible because its owner, Nancy Bass Wyden, is the wife of U.S. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon. In 2021, the Strand applied for a second Paycheck Protection Program loan of $932,350, which required certification that no member of Congress had a controlling interest in the business.

Court documents unsealed Thursday reveal that President Donald Trump's administration held secret talks with Iran about deporting Iranians even as war continued. The administration said as recently as mid-October that it had plans to deport them through an unnamed third country. A judge ordered the government to give 24-hour notice of any finalised deportation plans.

Abdul El-Sayed, the son of Egyptian immigrants, has won a Michigan Senate seat to become the first Muslim American U.S. senator. In his victory speech, he addressed Vice President JD Vance, who had warned during the campaign that El-Sayed would lead rioters in burning down Detroit, saying 'JD, habibi' and noting the irony that Vance would be constitutionally obliged to swear him in. Arabs across the region have celebrated his use of Arabic terms and phrases in American politics.