Trump administration created fund to resolve his lawsuit against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns

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A federal judge in Virginia has extended an order blocking the Trump administration’s nearly $1.8bn slush fund, saying the administration’s public statements that the fund was dead were not assuring enough.

The US district judge Leonie Brinkema, an appointee of Bill Clinton, said she would lift her order if the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, and the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, filed a declaration under penalty of perjury that the fund was not moving forward in the next week.

One man died in Iowa after a tree fell on him as nearly 700 severe weather events were recorded over three days

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An Illinois man whose home was destroyed by a tornado on Thursday was pulled from the rubble by a police officer and a photojournalist, who captured the terrifying storm and subsequent rescue in dramatic video footage.

Scott Lasker, who describes himself as a storm chaser, recorded the tornado ripping through the town of Streator and was filming the damage it inflicted when he came across the man trapped in the debris of his house.

The redrawing of electoral districts, or gerrymandering, in the United States is reaching unprecedented levels. After the Supreme Court’s late-April ruling changed electoral rules and curtailed minority rights, Republicans have stepped up efforts to dismantle majority-Black districts, especially in the South, though the strategy extends to states beyond that region.

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