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Good morning. Donald Trump has said he is scaling back joint US military drills with South Korea aimed at deterring North Korea, despite military officials from both countries warning that Kim Jong-un’s regime is learning new battlefield tactics from the Ukraine war.

The president said he was “not happy” with US participation “based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong-un”. He added that the drills were costly and “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a country that, as long as Donald J Trump has been president, has been unthreatening and respectful”. Trump added that it was too late to cancel the drills so he had ordered the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, to “substantially reduce” them.

• Why are there continuing concerns about USS Abraham Lincoln? Democrats have intensified their demands for answers from the Trump administration over conditions onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln amid concern over crew morale, mental health and living conditions. Ruben Gallego, a Democratic senator from Arizona, said he blamed the carrier’s prolonged deployment on the unresolved war that Donald Trump started in February with Iran as well as lackluster leadership in general from the Republican president’s administration.

Jared Kushner meets Hamas leader before talks with Netanyahu on Gaza

Donald Trump’s son-in-law and envoy, Jared Kushner, held a rare meeting with Hamas’s political chief on Sunday in Egypt, in a new diplomatic effort to make progress on the stalled Gaza ceasefire. On Monday, Kushner will meet Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who is under pressure after rejecting the new 15-point, US-backed roadmap.

The roadmap involves Hamas gradually giving up its weapons while Israeli forces halt attacks and begin withdrawing from Gaza. Netanyahu says Israel will not retreat from any position in Gaza until Hamas has been completely disarmed. Israel has killed more than 1,200 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded more than 4,100 since agreeing to the ceasefire on 10 October 2025, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

Todd Blanche declines to pledge independence from White House

The US attorney general, Todd Blanche, on Sunday declined to assure that the federal justice department he helms would always act independently of the White House and Donald Trump. “No attorney general should ever pledge that,” he said on NBC. Blanche also claimed Trump would never ask him to do something that crossed an ethical or legal line.

Blanche added: “I swore to the constitution of the United States, like every cabinet secretary has done, and like every attorney general before me has done. And so this narrative that’s mostly pushed by the left and pushed by the media that the president’s going to pull me aside and ask me to do something illegal is completely a false narrative, not true, will not happen and hasn’t happened.”

Republican senator denounces Trump’s ‘crazy, stupid’ claims about MMR vaccine safety

The Republican senator Bill Cassidy, a medical doctor who voted to confirm the anti-vaccine activist Robert F Kennedy as federal health secretary in early 2025, on Sunday denounced Donald Trump’s “crazy, stupid” claims about the safety of the combined MMR vaccine for undermining faith in immunization.

Asked about Trump’s comment that “nothing bad can happen” from advising parents to get six separate shots for their children instead of two, Cassidy told CNN on Sunday: “If it wasn’t so potentially tragic, you would break out laughing at a comment like that.”

In other news …

• Hayden Panettiere, the actor known for her roles in television shows such as Heroes and Nashville, has died at the age of 36. Her father, Skip Panettiere, asked for privacy “as our family takes time to process this unimaginable loss”.

• Kyiv could hit Russia with its own domestic ballistic missiles in months, a former defense minister has said.

• Wildlife groups in Florida are celebrating record numbers of sea turtle nests this season, but experts warn Donald Trump’s recent gutting of the Endangered Species Act could reverse decades of their recovery.

• Tommy John, synonymous with a ligament-replacement surgery that paved a path to recovery for injured baseball players, has died. He was 83. The left-hander was 31 years old when he tore the ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching elbow and had it replaced with a tendon from his right forearm.

• The University of Cambridge has defended its mental health support for the academic Jason Arday. Arday was pronounced dead on Friday, weeks after he resigned from his post as professor of sociology of education, following widespread press coverage of accusations of plagiarism and inconsistencies in statements about his career and achievements.

Stat of the day: At least six people dead from days of storms and record flooding in Indiana

A four-year-old boy, two men and three women were among those who died since storms began on 11 August in Indiana, the state’s homeland security department spokesperson, Liz Woods, said.

Building power: Teenagers demand more support after US schools ban phones

More students are advocating for their own digital wellbeing and developing programs to thrive in tech-free learning environments.

Don’t miss this: Why cancer, not cost of living, may be the biggest issue in Iowa’s midterm elections

The midwestern state of Iowa has the second highest rate of cancer nationwide and is one of only three states where incidents of the disease are rising. Promises to address the issue are now top of mind for candidates ahead of the 3 November elections, in which Iowa may play an important role in deciding control of Congress for the final two years of Donald Trump’s term.

… or this: The Fair Hill Five, horse racing’s bizarre transatlantic betting coup, explained

Someone, somewhere, appears to have made a lot of money by betting on a series of unfancied horses who all unexpectedly came good. Bryan Armen Graham looks at what could be a sensational stroke of luck … or something more sinister.

Climate check: Spotlight on UN desertification summit as it mulls how to spend $12bn war chest

Environment editor Fiona Harvey reports that as swathes of the northern hemisphere bake in what could be the hottest year on record, with wildfires blazing across North America and Europe and heatwaves afflicting millions across Asia, the UN’s biannual talks on desertification have assumed much greater importance – and have started attracting more money.

Last Thing: Europe’s tallest Virgin Mary statue unveiled in small Polish village

A small village in Poland with a population of just 150 has put itself on the map by unveiling what is believed to be – at 182ft – Europe’s tallest statue of the Virgin Mary.

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