For years, as researchers have established a link between repeated impacts to the head and the degenerative brain disease known as CTE, one major question has loomed: Just how common is it — especially among high-risk groups, like professional football players?

A new study from researchers at Mass General Brigham, published Tuesday in the prominent medical journal The BMJ, seeks to establish a more accurate baseline of CTE prevalence among retired NFL players who have died. Of football players who appeared in at least one NFL game in their careers and who died between 2016 and 2021, the study found that a minimum of around 25% had CTE upon their death.

"We've known that this disease process can be caused by, in part, repeated traumatic brain injury. But we didn't know how common it was," said Dr. Daniel Daneshvar, the study's lead author.

Elon Musk will not face charges for promising to give $1 million to voters in a 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court election because no jury would find that constituted election bribery, a state prosecutor said Tuesday.

Musk, the founder of SpaceX and CEO of Tesla, was deeply involved in the effort to flip majority control of the highest court in battleground Wisconsin last year. But the candidate he and Republicans backed lost to Democratic-supported Susan Crawford, whose victory preserved liberals' majority on the court.

The bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission in July referred two complaints to the Brown County district attorney’s office for possible charges, saying Musk likely broke the law. La Crosse County District Attorney Tim Gruenke was later appointed as a special prosecutor because of a conflict of interest.

Ghislaine Maxwell’s bid to overturn her sex trafficking conviction and be freed from prison was rejected by a federal judge Tuesday who said the claims by Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend and longtime associate that new evidence had emerged were “demonstrably meritless.”

Maxwell filed a habeas petition last December seeking to set aside her conviction and free her from a 20-year prison sentence, claiming exonerating information was withheld and false testimony presented at her trial, resulting in a “complete miscarriage of justice.”

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer rejected her arguments, saying in his written ruling they “all or almost all are frivolous” and that she had presented nothing that could upend the outcome of her trial.

Two unvaccinated Pennsylvania residents have died after being infected with measles, the first U.S. deaths this year related to the contagious virus.

State health officials announced the deaths Tuesday. They did not reveal any details about the people who died, other than that they lived in Lancaster County, west of Philadelphia.

“My deepest sympathies are with the loved ones who are facing this unimaginable loss,” said state Health Secretary Dr. Debra Bogen. “Because measles was largely eliminated in the Commonwealth for more than three decades, people are not familiar with this disease and don’t fully understand the potential severity of the illness.”

The U.S. has now seen five measles-associated deaths in the last two years — more than the combined total of reported deaths over the previous three decades — and is enduring its worst year for measles since 1991.

With 2,777 cases as of Thursday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this year already has surpassed 2025’s measles count.

From makeup to smartphones to kitchen appliances, the federal government is laying out its plan to hit the U.S. with dollar-for-dollar counter-tariffs that will impact around 700 different American products, while also announcing supports for Canadian workers and businesses, such as temporary changes to employment insurance.

The tariffs will be imposed on $27.6 billion worth of U.S. imports with tariffs varying from 15, 25 and 50 per cent depending on the product. The levies will be effective starting Sept. 8.

Cristy Maryori Villafranca-Trejo, deported to Honduras, is latest military spouse to face removal amid Trump 2.0

The wife of an active-duty US soldier was deported on Monday to her native Honduras, according to her family and the federal Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Cristy Maryori Villafranca-Trejo is at least the seventh spouse or parent of an active-duty US soldier to be deported under the immigration crackdown during Donald Trump’s second presidency.

The Associated Press has found more than 50 cases in which immediate family members of US troops were placed in federal immigration detention after the Trump administration rolled back protections for military families. In some instances, the DHS has released military spouses after media attention and advocacy by congressional leaders.

Ranchers and Republicans alike have pushed back on the beef plan

The Trump administration’s beef deal has met with stiff resistance from ranchers and Republicans, who argue that allowing more imports will do little to change the underlying conditions that have sent beef prices spiking, such as low herd sizes because of drought.

"Despite high beef prices in grocery stores, prices paid to farmers and ranchers for their cattle have fallen sharply over the past two months, and beef packing plants are shutting down across the U.S.,” American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall said in a statement after the plan was announced.

"Further undercutting a fragile recovery by swamping markets with foreign products and attempting to manipulate prices threatens to wipe out any progress that has been made,” he added.

The warning came as Trump leaves a trail of destruction in Washington, demolishing the White House East Wing to make way for a $600m ballroom and ordering a renovation of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool that resulted in algae blooms and a peeling liner.

The court filing represented the first time that Trump’s allies have raised the prospect of knocking down the Kennedy Center – a 100ft-high complex with a concert hall, opera house and theatre – as the dire alternative to closing it for two years of improvements. Such an aggressive move would be sure to face legal challenges, protests and an outcry from historic preservation groups.

The threat emerged on Monday as the administration urged a federal judge to reject a fresh legal challenge to Trump’s efforts to put his name on the Kennedy Center. The dispute has become part of a months-long battle over the president’s attempt to alter the memorial created by Congress in honour of John F Kennedy, the 35th US president who was assassinated in 1963.

Maine Coon named Erebus Anomaly breaks previous record of 28 toes held for over two decades after overcoming illness

A Maine Coon kitten from Wisconsin overcame a bout with pneumonia to break a 24-year-old world record for most toes on a cat, setting the new mark at 29.

Erebus Anomaly’s unique story received US national media attention on Monday, when ABC’s World News Now program recounted what one of his owners called a “miraculous” recovery from illness in his infancy – and the subsequent Guinness World Record that he clinched.

Erebus’s unprecedented wealth of toes is evidently attributed to a genetic trait, polydactyly, that causes some cats to be born with extra phalanges and – according to a 2016 article in the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery – is relatively common in Maine Coons.

The state department will revoke B1 and B2 visas issued between 2016 and 2026, whose holders have sought or are now seeking asylum

Donald Trump’s administration said on Monday it planned to revoke the non-immigrant visas of foreigners who have applied for or are currently seeking asylum status in the US, marking its latest step in a sweeping immigration crackdown.

A state department spokesperson said it was coordinating with the Department of Homeland Security “to identify and revoke the non-immigrant visas of foreigners who have come to the United States claiming to be short-term visitors, but then file for asylum to stay here permanently”.

The state department did not specify the number of visas that will be revoked in the process.

The Associated Press put the number of foreigners whose business and tourism visas are planned to be revoked at up to 200,000, which if materialized, would be the largest single mass revocation of visas in US history. The AP cited state department documents and two US officials.

Trump administration proposes new rule to dismantle requirement for datacenters to publicly report air pollution

A new rule proposed by the Trump administration aims to kill public notification for datacenter air pollution, public health advocates warn, and allow emission permits to be issued behind closed doors.

The datacenters are often sources of nitrogen oxide, which helps form ozone, carbon monoxide and heavy metals, among other pollutants.

The Clean Air Act requires “minor” air polluters to disclose to the public via state agencies how much pollution their proposed project will release, but the proposed new rule from Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would dismantle that protection for datacenter proposals. Instead, it would make disclosure voluntary at state and some local officials’ discretion.

Arbitrator determined the Post improperly fired Karen Attiah, a union-protected employee, over social media posts

An independent arbitrator has ordered the Washington Post to rehire the high-profile opinion columnist Karen Attiah, abruptly fired by the news organization last September over comments she made on social media about Charlie Kirk, the then recently slain conservative activist.

On Monday, an arbitrator ruled that the Post had violated her rights as a union-protected employee and ordered the newspaper to reinstate her and compensate her for lost wages.

“This decision confirms what we’ve said from the start: I was doing my job as an opinion journalist, and doing that job is not misconduct,” Attiah said in a statement. “After spending over a decade of my career at the Post as an editor and an opinion columnist focusing on race, gender and global human rights, I’m relieved to finally have that record set straight … I hope that this win sends a message to journalists and media institutions everywhere that freedom of expression is always worth fighting for.”