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, I’m not going to pledge that,” he said when asked about the topic by NBC’s Meet the Press host, Kristen Welker. “And no attorney general should ever pledge that.”

Blanche also claimed Trump would never ask him to do something that crosses an ethical or legal line – after the president dismissed his predecessor, Pam Bondi, having become frustrated over insufficient action from the justice department against Trump’s political foes.

Donald Trump said Sunday that he has directed the Defense Department to scale down joint military exercises with South Korea, citing the country’s refusal to join the war in Iran and his “very good” relationship with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

Trump said the large, annual military drills sent a “signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile” to North Korea, a country with which the U.S. has no formal diplomatic ties but which Trump says has been “unthreatening and respectful” as long as he has been president.

“Based on the fact that it is too late to cancel, I have instructed Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to substantially reduce the Joint Military Exercises!” Trump wrote.

Trump also mentioned South Korea’s refusal to join the Iran war.

One US sailor’s mother asks: ‘My son signed up to serve his country. But why isn’t his country serving him?’

Naval families with loved ones deployed for months on US warships amid the Iran war have reacted with fury to Donald Trump and the defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s dismissal of their concerns about the extreme pressures and dire conditions they are enduring.

The Guardian has talked to three naval families who have been following the physical and mental stresses bearing down on their relatives with mounting alarm. The families, with loved ones on board the USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Tripoli, all spoke anonymously for fear of retribution against their active duty relatives.

They spoke of insufficient nourishment that has led to close relatives losing 20-30lbs in weight since they were sent to the Middle East five months ago, leaving one sailor “emaciated”, according to his mother. They spoke also of low-quality drinking water and scarce mental health counseling and support despite the intense burden of being at sea for months on end without making land.

Donald Trump on Friday downplayed the toll on American sailors enduring nearly nine months at sea on the USS Abraham Lincoln as concerns escalated about mental health and supply issues aboard the aircraft carrier supporting U.S. operations against Iran.

In a brief exchange with reporters before flying to New York for an event to highlight falling violent crime rates across the U.S., Trump refuted that family members have raised concerns about the deployment’s length and even said that the deployment — which includes a record-setting uninterrupted time at sea of more than 240 days — is “not nearly long enough.”

Five people were wounded in a shooting involving multiple suspects at Virginia State University early Saturday, prompting a campus lockdown and police investigation just as students get ready for a new school year.

It happened near the university’s Quad Annexes, where campus police and Chesterfield County officers discovered five people suffering from gunshot wounds outside campus dormitories. Officers responded just before 1:30 a.m. and the lockdown was lifted at about 9 a.m., county police said.

The shooting happened as Virginia State’s academic year begins. According to the university’s website, residence halls opened for students a week ago, and classes resume on Monday. Many students had just completed the university’s “New Trojans Experience” for incoming students.

It is among the most famous phrases in presidential history: “ The buck stops here.” Except with Donald Trump, it almost never does.

Concerns about a weak economy and still-high inflation? His predecessor, Joe Biden, saddled him with that, he says, even though the Democrat has been out of office for 18-plus months and despite Trump once promising an immediate turnaround.

The problem-plagued revamp of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool? That was marred by vandalism, the Republican president insists, even though the office of a prosecutor he put in the job has said the damage was due to shoddy workmanship.

The increasingly unpopular war in Iran that has kept oil prices high, Trump’s approval rating low and sent shock waves through the global economy? Actually, this was Trump making up for timid earlier presidents who, he argues, squandered nearly 50 years of opportunities to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear sharply criticized Senator Mitch McConnell and the Senate at large over the Kentucky Republican’s prolonged absence from Congress due to health issues.

Beshear, a Democrat, said on Friday that he still had little information about the condition of McConnell, who was hospitalized in mid-June and released from a rehabilitation center earlier this month.

“I’ve received absolutely nothing, and that's the same that the people of Kentucky have received,” Beshear told MS Now. “This is why the Senate feels broken. These guys don’t think that they have a boss when the people of Kentucky are their boss. They don’t feel like they are accountable whatsoever.”

Beshear called on McConnell to make a video or call into a news show to update the public about his health.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has upgraded an egg recall to its highest risk classification following a Salmonella Enteritidis outbreak.

The eggs produced by Midwest Poultry Services in Texas were originally recalled in late July, as nearly 1.6 million dozen eggs were placed under potential salmonella contamination in multiple states, including Oklahoma.

The recall is now Class I, which is considered "a situation in which there is reasonable probability that the use of or exposure to a violative product will cause serious adverse health consequences or death," per the FDA. At least 98 people were sick and 26 were hospitalized across 17 states between Nov. 21, 2025, and June 30.

Prolonged deployment is coupled with reports of water shortages, plumbing issues and attempts to jump overboard

US navy veterans and military health experts are expressing concerns about the strain on sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, which has spent nearly nine months at sea supporting US operations in the Middle East, amid reports of poor living conditions and worsening mental health among its crew.

The San Diego-based aircraft carrier left port on 21 November, originally bound for the Pacific, but was redirected to the Middle East as the US-Israel war with Iran began. It has now spent more than 250 consecutive days at sea without a significant port visit, with its deployment repeatedly extended.

On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the US military was preparing to replace the Lincoln with the USS George Washington, as concerns mount over the conditions aboard the Lincoln.

Reports by the Navy Times and Stars and Stripes this week described shortages of supplies and water as well as plumbing problems, low morale and deteriorating mental health among the Lincoln's roughly 5,000 sailors, and further reported that there had been multiple attempts by sailors to jump overboard. The reports prompted several Democratic lawmakers to demand answers from the Pentagon.