loses

Nov. 1, 2026 11:10 AM PT

JUNEAU, Alaska — A federal judge on Sunday dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit seeking to block certification of Alaska’s U.S. Senate race if Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan loses.

Sullivan, an ally of President Trump, faces Democratic former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola in one of the country’s most closely watched races, with Senate control at stake. Tuesday’s ranked-choice election also includes two candidates who have done little campaigning, one of whom shares the incumbent’s name.

The lawsuit, filed less than two weeks before the election and with early voting underway, called for an investigation into whether votes for retired teacher Dan J. Sullivan were intended for the senator. The state said the case lacked merit and argued there would be no way to determine that without violating voter privacy.

U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason wrote in the order that the relief the United States seeks is “infeasible” because many voters have already cast their ballots. She said the cast ballots have been mixed together to the point where they cannot be matched to specific voters.

“More fundamentally, the United States provides no workable plan as to how it proposes to segregate ballots cast for Daniel J. Sullivan on Election Day and then conduct a court-ordered unspecified ‘investigation’ of those ballots in a manner that would preserve voter secrecy,” she wrote.

Attorneys for the Republican-led state government, Peltola’s campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee argued that the case lacked any legal basis and amounted to interference. The senator and his allies, including Trump, for months have portrayed Dan J. Sullivan as a sham candidate intent on confusing voters and helping Peltola.

In the week before election day, the New York Times reported that Peltola’s campaign was involved in efforts to recruit the challenger Sullivan. Dan J. Sullivan in June, shortly after entering the race, said he’d had no contact with the campaign about running. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.

Peltola’s campaign responded by saying the campaign “has no involvement with either Sullivan campaign” — a statement similar to one it released after Dan J. Sullivan launched his bid.

“I am not interested in tricking voters,” she said during a recent campaign event.

State courts, including the Alaska Supreme Court, rejected Republican-backed efforts to block the retired teacher from the August open primary ballot on which he appeared as Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., with no party affiliation. The senator was listed as Dan S. Sullivan, Republican and incumbent.

Both Sullivans appear the same way on the general election ballot. Peltola placed first in the primary, followed by the senator. Dan J. Sullivan received about 2.5% of the primary vote, but that was enough to finish within the top four and qualify for the Nov. 3 ranked-choice election.

Attorneys for the Alaska Department of Law, led by Republican acting Atty. Gen. Cori Mills, represented state elections officials in the case and asked Gleason, who was appointed by President Obama, to toss the lawsuit. They filed a scathing response to the federal government’s complaint, calling it “meritless.”

Alaska also said the state had taken “significant steps” to distinguish the two Sullivans on the ballot. Voters who still might be confused could ask for help or look up candidate biographies and other information in state-distributed election pamphlets.

Gleason wrote that the administration’s attempt to block certification ran counter to the Constitution, which gives states the authority to run elections. She also cited the Supreme Court’s Purcell principle, which holds that federal courts should generally not change election rules too close to an election.

Alaska’s ranked voting system also offers a solution to possible confusion, the state wrote, allowing voters to rank the Sullivans as first and second choices, if they choose.

“That way, if the voter’s first-ranked Sullivan is eliminated, his vote would transfer to the other Sullivan,” attorneys Rachel Witty, Margaret Paton Walsh and Laura Fox wrote. “The voter’s vote would not ‘be transferred to Peltola’ as the complaint asserts, unless the voter chose to rank Peltola as his next choice instead of the other Sullivan.”

Trump for years has railed against Alaska’s use of ranked-choice voting in general elections. Republican state leaders have said that while they don’t like ranked voting, they want voters to “rank every Republican” candidate on this year’s ballot, especially with a high-stakes governor’s race featuring one Democrat and three Republicans.

On Thursday, the Justice Department escalated a criminal investigation over the same-named candidates on the Alaska ballot, issuing a raft of new grand jury subpoenas, a person familiar with the matter told the Associated Press. The FBI also has begun contacting people who donated to Dan J. Sullivan, some of whom told the AP that the agents were asking if they had been misled about which candidate they were supporting.

Riccardi and Bohrer write for the Associated Press. AP photographer Lindsey Wasson in Anchorage contributed to this report.

Imprisoned “That ’70s Show” actor Danny Masterson on Tuesday suffered a legal blow that ensures he will remain behind bars for at least another decade.

Three California appeals court judges rejected Masterson’s efforts to overturn his 2023 rape convictions and allegations that he did not receive a fair trial, deciding in an opinion filed in the state’s 2nd District Court of Appeals that “judgment is affirmed.”

The decision “ignores the extraordinary new evidence that has been before them for more than a year,” Masterson attorney Cliff Gardner said, referencing statements from “both complaining witnesses that their sexual experiences” with the actor were “both consensual and positive.”

“Danny is serving a life sentence for crimes he did not commit,” Gardner added in his statement. “No one in California — not defendants and not victims who have actually been the victim of a sex crime — is safer by virtue of today’s unfortunate decision.”

Masterson’s legal team is seeking further review in California Supreme Court and exploring additional legal action regarding evidence presented to the jury.

Attorneys for Masterson first filed their notice to appeal the actor’s conviction in November 2023, then filed a 242-page opening brief in December 2024. Key witness testimonies changed over time, the court excluded significant exculpatory evidence and judicial rulings skewed the jury’s view of the evidence against Masterson, his lawyers alleged at the time. The attorneys also argued that “jurors had significant reservations.”

A mix of errors by another defense attorney and a law enforcement investigation heavily biased against Masterson’s faith led to a wrongful conviction, the actor’s attorney Eric Multhaup alleged in another motion filed November 2025. Multhaup said Tuesday in a statement that the appeals court judges’ recent decision “are fundamentally wrong.”

“The Court of Appeal did not address any of the exculpatory evidence that was contained in the habeas corpus petition, and instead justified the denial with a one-paragraph summary of the one-sided evidence presented by the prosecution,” Multhaup alleged. “This cursory treatment reflects poorly on the administration of justice in the Court of Appeal, and will be rectified by a petition to the California Supreme Court.”

Los Angeles prosecutors charged Masterson in 2020 for three counts of rape involving three different women in the early 2000s. He denied all wrongdoing and maintained all sexual encounters were consensual. He also framed the accusations as an attack of the Church of Scientology. The women said they took years to report the rapes to police out of fear of retaliation from the church.

Masterson first went to trial in 2022, but jurors failed to reach a verdict on any of the three counts, leading the case to end in a mistrial. He was tried a second time in 2023 and found guilty of raping two women, both former members of the Church of Scientology. The jury was deadlocked on a third woman’s accusations. His attorneys argued in December 2024 that there was “no physical evidence supporting the state’s theory [of rape]” and the case was a “a pure credibility contest.”

The actor is currently carrying out his sentence at the California Men’s Colony prison in San Luis Obispo. According to a state database, he will be eligible for parole in June 2042, but is scheduled for a consultation in May 2038.

Times staff writers Clara Harter and James Queally contributed to this report.

Mbappe appears to say that the funniest internet meme he had seen was of his face photo-shopped onto that of “a Chinese dictator”.

Kylian Mbappe has been dropped by two major brands in China after a video circulated online in which the French football superstar apparently joked about former Chinese leader Mao Zedong.

In China, jokes about Mao, the country’s founding leader who died in 1976, are considered disrespectful and remain a social taboo.

“Our company firmly opposes and has a zero-tolerance policy towards any behaviour that offends national sentiments,” drinks giant Dongpeng said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that “with immediate effect we are terminating all cooperation with Kylian Mbappe”.

Advertisements showing AI-generated images of the 27-year-old France captain drinking a Dongpeng sports drink were regularly shown in China during this year’s FIFA World Cup.

Mengniu, China’s largest dairy producer, also cut ties with the Real Madrid forward, who until this incident was hugely popular among Chinese fans with millions of followers on social media.

Mbappe is fondly nicknamed “Guigui”, the Chinese translation of “turtle”, due to his popularity as a character in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles meme.

“With immediate effect our company is terminating all cooperation with Kylian Mbappe,” Mengniu said in a statement.

“Mengniu firmly opposes and has a zero-tolerance policy towards any words or actions that hurt the feelings of the Chinese people,” it added.

The announcements came after a video emerged online with Mbappe saying the funniest internet meme he had seen was of his face digitally altered onto that of “some guy – I think he’s a Chinese dictator”.

This was an apparent reference to a meme of Mbappe superimposed on an image of Mao, one of several using the footballer’s face and other historical figures.

“Dongpeng Beverage ends cooperation with Mbappe” was the top-trending topic on Chinese social media site Weibo.

One Weibo user said the “extremely serious wrong remarks … crossed the red line. They are completely unacceptable.”

Others urged Dongpeng to remove Mbappe’s image from their energy drink bottles.

Dongqiudi, one of China’s biggest online football outlets, said in a statement on Monday evening that Mbappe’s remarks were “offensive to China and the Chinese people” and “have hurt the feelings of Chinese football fans and the Chinese people”.

In September, Mbappe addressed a previous meme depicting him as a military dictator in an interview with French sports newspaper L’Equipe.

“There’s a part of it that’s funny. You can tell that, for some people, it’s all in good fun. But there is another part that’s a bit less funny because of the damage such people have caused throughout history,” he said.

“Being compared to individuals who murder others, or who have brought misery to millions upon millions of people – well, I don’t think I’ve ever done anything like that in my life,” he said.

The furore in China came a day after Mbappe lost out to Harry Kane for the Ballon d’Or, the most prestigious individual award in football.

Global sports stars who have commented on sensitive topics such as Taiwan, Tibet and Hong Kong have previously caused controversy in China and been dumped by sponsors there.

Former NBA player Dwight Howard referred to Taiwan as a country in 2023 as he appeared in a video with the island’s vice president and current President William Lai Ching-te, causing fury on Chinese social media.

Beijing claims Taiwan is its territory and has threatened to use force to take control.

Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey posted a tweet in 2019 supporting Hong Kong protests, leading to China suspending sponsorship deals with the NBA and pulling games off Chinese television for a year.

Alexander Zverev is guaranteed to finish the 2026 season as the world number one after Carlos Alcaraz’s surprise defeat in the Shanghai Masters.

German Zverev was on course to climb above current world number one Jannik Sinner, who has been ruled out for the rest of the year with a knee injury.

Alcaraz still had a mathematical chance of stopping Zverev until he was beaten 7-5 7-6 (7-4) by Belgium’s Zizou Bergs in the third round on Monday.

“It’s been a fantastic season for me. Knowing that I will finish the year on top of the rankings is just a dream come true,” said Zverev.

After losing three major finals, Zverev landed the first Grand Slam title of his career by winning the French Open in June, and followed that with victory at the US Open last month.

The 29-year-old has taken advantage of the injury problems suffered by Spaniard Alcaraz and Italian Sinner – the dominant pair on the ATP Tour in the previous two seasons – to become the world’s leading player.

Zverev cannot overtake Sinner until 2 November at the earliest.

He will become the first German to end the year as number one, and the oldest player to achieve the feat for the first time.

After suffering a serious ankle injury in the 2022 French Open semi-finals which kept him out for seven months, Zverev regained his place in the upper echelons of the sport and been ranked inside the top four continuously since March 2024.

“So much work and effort have been put into achieving this goal, especially after coming back from the ankle injury. I look forward to finishing the season in style,” he said.

AN island in Europe has already lost thousands of tourists after Ryanair axed all flights there earlier this year.

The budget airline previously operated flights to the Azores in Portugal, having launched in 2015.

However, they confirmed last year that they would be scrapping them all with the last flight taking place on March 28.

The cancellations were due to airport fees, Ryanair said, as well as environment taxes in Europe.

The removal of Ryanair flights – which also included a number of routes from the UK – has left just British Airways operating flights, along with European airlines TAP and Azores Airlines.

Most of these operate from mainland Portugal.

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And new figures have found that the loss of Ryanair passengers has seen a drop in tourists of 100,000 already.

According to the Regional Statistics Service of the Azores (SREA), passengers arriving at the island airport dropped by 103,766 between April and August.

And there are fears this could increase even more, with projections of up to “391,000 overnight stays” lost a year.

Brits wanting to fly to the island from the UK can now only fly with British Airways, which runes flights from London Heathrow between April and October.

Otherwise alternative routes are to fly to Portugal with a connecting flight from Lisbon or Faro.