The Republican leader of the US Senate, Mitch McConnell is to stand down in November, AP is reporting.
It ends a record run in the powerful post, that has seen the 82-year-old trade blows with many top figures in multiple US administrations of the last two decades.
In prepared remarks obtained by the news agency, Mr McConnell said: “One of life’s most underappreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter.
“So I stand before you today… to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate.”
Despite relinquishing the position of Senate leader, Mr McConnell intends to see out his term in the US’ upper house, which ends in January 2027.
Born in 1942, the former attorney has represented Kentucky in the Senate since 1985.
He was first named party leader for the GOP in 2007, and has since won nine successive elections to keep the post for 17 years – the longest anyone has led their party in the Senate in American history.
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The Kentucky senator also said in his prepared remarks: “I love the Senate. It has been my life.
“There may be more distinguished members of this body throughout our history, but I doubt there are any with more admiration for it.
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“Father Time remains undefeated. I am no longer the young man sitting in the back, hoping colleagues would remember my name. It is time for the next generation of leadership.”
Questions were raised about his fitness for office last year after a number of public instances where he appeared to freeze.
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1:03
From July: Senate Republican freezes at press conference
His Republican colleagues grabbed his elbows and asked if he wanted to go back to his office after pausing for around half a minute, before he slowly walked back to his office with an aide and the senator for Wyoming, John Barrasso.
After being asked, he stopped speaking and stared for more than 30 seconds, before being asked: “Did you hear the question, senator?”
He did come around and briefly respond to another question.
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2:19
From August 2023: McConnell freezes a second time
Those moments came after Mr McConnell was out of the Senate for almost six weeks, after falling and hitting his head at a dinner event that March.
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The world’s best golfer has suffered a freak injury while cooking Christmas dinner, forcing him to undergo surgery.
Scottie Scheffler sustained a puncture wound after cutting the palm of his right hand on broken glass.
The world number one required surgery as small glass fragments remained in the palm after the accident.
The injury has forced him out of the first tournament of the season, next week’s The Sentry in Hawaii.
But the 28-year-old has been told he will recover in three to four weeks, and he hopes to be back in action at The American Express tournament in California on 16 January.
Scheffler won an Olympic gold and seven PGA Tour titles in the last year and was recently named PGA Tour’s Player of the Year for a third season in a row.
In May, he was arrested by police during the US PGA Championship after he was accused of trying to drive around a traffic jam caused by a fatal accident.
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Just hours later, he was released and allowed to return to Valhalla Golf Club in Kentucky to play his second round of the tournament.
Criminal charges against Scheffler were later dismissed due to a lack of evidence and a police officer who arrested him was disciplined for not having his bodycam on at the time of the incident.
The man accused of burning a woman to death on a New York subway train has been indicted on murder and arson charges.
Sebastian Zapeta is accused of setting a sleeping woman on fire and then fanning the flames with a shirt, which caused her to be engulfed by the blaze.
He allegedly sat on a platform at Brooklyn’s Coney Island station, opposite the stopped train, and watched as she burned to death.
Authorities are still working to identify the victim.
Zapeta, 33, has been charged with one count of first degree murder, two counts of second degree murder and one count of arson in the first degree.
After a brief hearing in which the indictment was announced, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said: “This was a malicious deed. A sleeping, vulnerable woman on our subway system.”
Mr Gonzalez said police and medical examiners are using fingerprints and advanced DNA techniques to identify the victim, while also retracing her steps before the murder.
“Our hearts go out not only to this victim, but we know that there’s a family,” he said. “Just because someone appears to have been living in the situation of homelessness does not mean that there’s not going to be family devastated by the tragic way she lost her life.”
Such filings are often a first step in the criminal process because all felony cases in New York require a grand jury indictment to proceed to trial, unless a defendant waives that requirement.
Zapeta was not present at the hearing. The most serious charge he is facing carries a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole and the indictment will be unsealed on 7 January.
Zapeta is a Guatemalan who entered the US illegally having already been deported in 2018, officials say.
He was taken into custody last Sunday, after three children called 911 when they recognised him from an image shared by police.
During questioning, prosecutors say he claimed not to know what happened, and noted he consumes alcohol – but did identify himself in photos and videos showing the fire being lit.
A pizza delivery woman stabbed a pregnant customer over a $2 tip, authorities in the US say.
Brianna Alvelo, 22, is charged with attempted murder after allegedly stabbing the woman multiple times at a motel in Kissimmee, Florida.
The victim, her boyfriend and her five-year-old daughter were staying at the Riviera Motel to celebrate a birthday and ordered Marco’s pizza on Sunday, according to a court document reported by Sky News’ US sister outlet NBC News.
Alvelo delivered the pizza which cost around $33 (£26) and was asked to provide change for a $50 bill but did not have the change, the affidavit said.
The woman then searched for smaller bills and in the end gave Alvelo a $2 tip.
She told police that some time later she heard a loud knocking on the door. A man and a woman wearing masks and all black forced themselves into the room when she opened the door, she said.
The man brandished a silver revolver and demanded that the woman’s boyfriend go into the bathroom and the other person, believed to be Alvelo, pulled out a pocketknife, the document said.
As the woman turned to shield her child she felt a strike on her lower back, she said.
She then “threw her daughter onto the bed and attempted to pick up her phone”, the affidavit said, but Alvelo grabbed it and smashed it.
Alvelo then “began striking her multiple times with the knife”, according to the affidavit. The man who had the gun then yelled it was time to go, stopping the assault, it said.