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California says the move to block ballots from suspected noncitizens could disenfranchise eligible voters.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to stop California from counting mail-in ballots from more than 20,000 voters it claims are not US citizens.

The emergency request, filed on Monday, just one day before the midterm elections, is the latest development in a legal battle between the administration and California, a Democratic stronghold and the most populous US state.

California says the move could disenfranchise thousands of eligible voters.

The Department of Justice wants California to set aside ballots from voters on a list compiled by the Department of Homeland Security until after their citizenship status is confirmed.

But California says the list is unreliable and could include thousands of US citizens.

Voting has been under way since early October, and state officials say it would be nearly impossible to separate the ballots in question.

Last week, a federal judge rejected the administration’s request, raising concerns about the reliability of the data on the list.

“If the executive can discount votes and threaten an ongoing election due to unproven allegations, then our democracy is in danger,” Judge David Carter wrote.

The administration has turned to the Supreme Court after a federal appeals court also rejected the request on Friday.

The dispute comes as Republicans fight to retain control of Congress in Tuesday’s elections.

Trump has repeatedly made false claims about widespread voter fraud, but studies and state audits have shown that ineligible voting, including by noncitizens, is rare.

HELEN Flanagan has been cruelly mum-shamed by an online troll after sharing her glamorous Halloween costume following her young son’s hospital visit.

The former Corrie star, 36, looked stunning as she transformed into Wuthering Heights heroine Catherine Earnshaw but one Instagram follower used the post to question her parenting.

They wrote: “Shouldn’t you be looking after your son instead of posting this?

“If you have a child and that child was taken to hospital, would you not spend time worrying about your child rather than even thinking about your social media?

“But as someone has said, she doesn’t do both. Her mother looks after her children.”

The unkind comment came after Helen’s ex-fiancé Scott Sinclair shared a photograph of their youngest child Charlie, five, in hospital on Wednesday.

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The little boy was pictured wearing an oxygen mask and giving a thumbs-up, with his dad captioning the image: “My little soldier.”

Scott did not disclose why Charlie needed treatment.

Helen had pulled out all the stops for the Ann Summers bash, pairing a lace corset with a striking red skirt and matching gloves.

Sharing her look on Instagram, she wrote: “Catherine Earnshaw this year for Halloween. Wuthering Heights is my fave film ever. The ultimate lover girl”.

She completed the dramatic look with what appeared to be a love bite on her neck, although some fans were convinced it was real.

Alongside the harsh remark, other followers were quick to hit back at the troll, writing: ” She can do both it’s called multitasking.”

A second fumed: “Why on earth do you follow her just to bad mouth her?”

A third commented: “This is probably pre filmed. Just because something is posted doesn’t mean it just happened does it?”

Another added: ” So she’s not allowed to have fun without your permission. I didn’t think she needs your permission….its her body her profile and its none of your business who are you to question or dictate to what she does and why are you following her.”

Love Island star Demi Jones added: “You looked so gorgeous!”

Helen shares three children with Scott – daughters Matilda, 11, and Delilah, eight, as well as Charlie.

The former couple split in 2022 after 13 years together and now co-parent their children.

Helen was forced to move out of their family home earlier this year, which was solely owned by Scott, as the footballer decided to sell it.

Helen even took to social media to sell some of the furniture they had purchased together.

Meanwhile, the actress is believed to be single following her split from former footballer Robbie Talbot.

The pair’s relationship became a talking point during her 2024 appearance on Celebs Go Dating, when she revealed she had already found romance away from the agency.

Captain Meg Jones says England are aiming to expand their attack to stay at the head of rugby’s world order.

The Red Roses’ four-year, 41-match unbeaten run was ended by a pair of defeats by Canada earlier this month, while New Zealand threatened victory at Allianz Stadium last month, only to be undone by Zoe Harrison’s final-play try.

For so long the runaway leaders at the top of the world rankings, England could even have dropped to third with a combination of a 15-point defeat against the United States on Friday and a New Zealand win over France on Saturday.

That never looked likely as the Red Roses ran in nine tries in victory over the USA in New Jersey, but Jones says competition is becoming more fierce at the top of the game.

“Teams are getting better, that’s the nature of it,” Jones said.

“It happened in the men’s game, it’s happened in the women’s game, and we’ve just got to start being probably more unpredictable.

“We’ve learned loads on this tour, and gained so much feedback from where we want to keep growing, getting better and keep pushing.”

An animal rights group is urging Crystal Palace to retire their live bald eagle mascot with immediate effect, saying a “bright stadium filled with boisterous fans is no place for animals”.

In a letter to Palace CEO Sharon Lacey, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) asked the Premier League club to stop using the eagle, named Phoenix, in pre-match displays at Selhurst Park and to never use live animal mascots again.

The London team, known as the Eagles since 1973, introduced a live eagle to matchdays in 2010. Kayla, who died in 2020, performed the role for 10 years and her replacement Phoenix made her debut against West Ham in August 2024.

Peta says birds can become “frightened, disoriented and panicked” in stadium environments, putting themselves and fans at risk.

Using them for displays and entertainment also denies the animals, who “would naturally avoid humans”, the opportunity to engage with their natural instincts, leading to “frustration and stress”, the group said.

The organisation has “detailed records” of incidents involving live mascots, including birds, being injured or killed in collisions with walls, windows and match balls, as well as a falcon embedding its talons in a spectator’s scalp after landing on his head.

In 2017, a Charlton Athletic fan was found guilty of trying to punch Kayla the eagle at a League Cup fixture two years earlier.

“Many professional sports teams use only willing humans as mascots and the club already has Pete the Eagle to excite the crowd,” said Dr Carys Bennett, Peta’s senior corporate projects manager.

“Bald eagles are widely recognised as symbols of freedom. They deserve better than to be used as an entertainment prop to amuse the Eagles’ fans.”

Lawyers for Janie and Joey Buss, two of the co-trustees of the Buss Family Trust that owns part of the Lakers, filed a response to Jeanie Buss’ petition Friday with intention to move forward with the proposed sale of the family’s remaining shares of the team.

While Jeanie is trying to block her five siblings from selling the team, the new response filed in L.A. Superior Court states that Janie and Joey, the two other co-trustees of the family trust, were authorized and required to implement the vote after a majority of the living siblings opted to terminate the trust in August. The vote of five siblings to sell the shares triggered the termination clause in the trust, and the filing argues that the trust doesn’t grant trustees discretion to disregard a valid vote to terminate.

The filing, which follows formal opposition filed on behalf of five Buss siblings last week that defended their right to vote to sell the team, asks the court to dismiss Jeanie’s petition or deny it in its entirety.

Jeanie argued that her siblings could not terminate the family trust and sell the remaining 17.82% of the team without her approval, citing a 2017 court order that instructed trustees to “take reasonably available steps” to support Jeanie’s annual election as Lakers controlling governor. The court order, obtained after Jeanie’s older brothers Jimmy and Johnny Buss tried to oust her from the organization, installed Janie and Joey as co-trustees.

But the court order did not prohibit a sale or termination of the trust, lawyers for Janie and Joey argue. While the order named “voting the trust’s shares” as a reasonable action, it did not require the trust to hold a 15% stake in the team to reach the NBA’s eligibility threshold for minority owners to serve on the league’s board of governors, the filing states.

Jeanie was selected by her father Jerry Buss to serve as the team’s controlling governor after his death in 2013.

Since the family patriarch bought the team, the Forum and the Kings for $67.5 million in 1979, the Lakers have become one of the most valuable brands in sports. Mark Walter, who purchased controlling ownership from the Buss siblings in 2025, sold his shares to venture capitalist Joshua Kushner and former Disney chief executive Bob Iger 14 months later at a record $12.5 billion valuation.

Using a tag-along provision secured during the sale to Walter, the five Buss siblings hope to maximize value for all six beneficiaries, including Jeanie, the new filing reports. Selling the 17.82% stake in the team would be worth about $2.2 billion.

A hearing is scheduled for Dec. 8. The Lakers open the regular season on Oct. 21 against the Golden State Warriors at Crypto.com Arena. Jeanie was seen at the Lakers’ home preseason opener on Oct. 8, sitting courtside on the baseline.

NEW YORK — Lawyers for the BBC say President Trump is trying to delay sitting for a deposition in the defamation case he brought against the British broadcaster until January 2027.

In a filing this week, they asked a Florida court to compel the president to appear in the $10 billion case after they say he canceled an agreed-upon date this week, citing “matters of national importance.”

“Two months of discovery remaining, the BBC still has not been able to depose, and does not even have a schedule to depose, the most central figure in this case: Plaintiff himself,” attorney Charles D. Tobin wrote in the filing. “Those delays have flouted the cooperative spirit of discovery and precluded the BBC from obtaining the evidence necessary to robustly litigate its defense.”

Trump, who has a history of avoiding depositions, filed the lawsuit against the BBC last December, seeking $10 billion in damages as he accused the British broadcaster of defamation as well as deceptive and unfair trade practices related to a documentary, “Trump: A Second Chance.”

Britain’s publicly funded national broadcaster admitted filmmakers spliced together quotes from different sections of the speech Trump delivered to his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, before the storming of the U.S. Capitol, to make it seem like he was directly urging violence.

The 33-page lawsuit accused the BBC of broadcasting a “false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction of President Trump,” calling it “a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence” the 2024 U.S. presidential election.

The broadcaster apologized to Trump over the edit and the head of the BBC and the British broadcaster’s top news executive both resigned. But the broadcaster has denied Trump’s claims that it defamed him.

In the filing this week, BBC lawyers said that they first requested dates for the deposition in July, and followed up repeatedly. Both sides, they said, eventually agreed on Oct. 16.

However, after weeks of silence, they wrote, “Plaintiff’s counsel responded on September 28, 2026, indicating that ‘the President is no longer available for his deposition on October 16 due to other matters of national importance’ and that counsel would ‘endeavor to provide you with a replacement date by the end of this week.’ He did not.”

Instead, they said, they were told last week that Trump “has no availability whatsoever for a deposition” before discovery is set to close on Dec. 18. and were told that Trump would instead make himself available the second or third week of January.

In a statement in response to the filing, a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team did not address the reasons for Trump’s delay, but repeated its allegations against the BBC and said the president was holding the broadcaster “accountable for its defamation and reckless election interference just as he has held other fake news mainstream media responsible for their wrongdoing.”

Trump voluntarily dropped a $500 million lawsuit he filed against his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen in 2023, days before he was set to give a deposition in that suit.

Colvin writes for the Associated Press.