• Pochettino ‘not happy’ with Palace’s injury assessment

• Richards missed Conference League final

• Predict your World Cup bracket | Complete player guide

Chris Richards will not take part in the United States’ final World Cup tune-up friendly against Germany, head coach Mauricio Pochettino said in Friday’s pre-match press conference.

While Pochettino awaits further assessments, the defender’s status for the World Cup is decidedly in doubt.

State department’s incendiary charge into UK politics comes from Trump who leant into personal feud with London mayor, Sadiq Khan

• Henry Nowak: controversy behind US intervention in a murder case that has rocked Britain

In the state department of past administrations, how to respond to an incendiary event such as the murder of the British student Henry Nowak would have required deliberations, memos and meetings. Given how it has roiled the UK and inflamed tensions over migration and race, the cautious diplomats at Foggy Bottom likely would have said nothing at all.

Now they tweet from the hip. “Ideological conditioning and two-tiered policing are glaring symptoms of civilizational decline,” the department’s official account posted on Thursday. “They must be rejected across the West.”

• Pochettino ‘not happy’ with Palace’s injury assessment

• Richards missed Conference League final

• Predict your World Cup bracket | Complete player guide

Chris Richards will not take part in the United States’ final World Cup tune-up friendly against Germany, head coach Mauricio Pochettino said in Friday’s pre-match press conference.

While Pochettino awaits further assessments, the defender’s status for the World Cup is decidedly in doubt.

Federal judge rules policies unlawfully barred applicants from receiving decisions on asylum, green cards and more

The Trump administration unlawfully barred applicants from 39 travel-ban countries from receiving decisions on asylum, work permits, green cards and citizenship applications, a US federal judge ruled on Friday.

The decision came on the same day that the US Senate voted to pass legislation to fund Donald Trump’s controversial immigration crackdown

Experts warn primary vote-counting could go on for days in governor’s race, LA mayoral race and congressional races

Three days after Californians headed to the polls, key races in the primary election remained too close to call and experts warned the counting could continue for days.

In the governor’s race, the British-born conservative pundit Steve Hilton was narrowly leading with an estimated 60% of ballots counted by Friday morning. Xavier Becerra, a former US health and human services secretary under Joe Biden, followed closely behind, and billionaire Tom Steyer trailed behind the pair. The top two vote-getters will advance to the general election in November.

Settlement over alleged child molestation by school janitors is latest in troubling string of allegations spanning decades

One of the most prominent Catholic high schools in New Orleans has agreed to pay a seven-figure monetary sum to settle a lawsuit claiming child molestation by janitors at the institution decades earlier.

The plaintiff struck the agreement with Jesuit high school ahead of a trial scheduled to start in the Louisiana city’s civil district courthouse on 15 June, roughly six years after he sued under a pseudonym.

• Social media protection service offered by Fifa

• English FA yet to confirm whether it will use service

Fifa will expand the use of AI at the World Cup to reduce the amount of abusive messages that teams and players are exposed to on social media.

World football’s governing body introduced a social media protection service after the 2022 World Cup in Qatar and has offered its moderation element for free to all football associations at the 2026 tournament, which starts next Thursday. The Football Association has not confirmed whether it is taking up the offer.

Prospect of first NBA title since 1999 fuels wave of righteous outrage against Big Apple-based Sesame Street character

The NBA basketball finals between the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs has already drawn commentary after Spurs fans earlier this week continued a habit of wearing distracting, candy-colored T-shirts to honor the Texas city’s annual Fiesta festival.

But now the Knicks’ first opportunity to win the title since 1999 – the last time they were in the finals, also against the Spurs, when they lost – has thrown fans in the Big Apple into such a partisan frenzy that some have come for one of their most beloved own.

Passage came after more than 18 hours of ‘vote-a-rama’ process; Lisa Murkowski was the only Republican senator to vote against it

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Nine out of 15 migrants deported from the US to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in April have returned to their home countries, Congo’s government, a migrant and her lawyer said on Friday.

The 15 migrants arrived in Congo on April 17 as part of a bilateral agreement with the Trump administration announced two weeks earlier to accept third-country deportees from the US. Congo’s government said in a statement on Friday that “more than half” of the migrants had since returned to their countries and that others would return “shortly“.

Experts warn primary vote-counting could go on for days in governor’s race, LA mayoral race and congressional races

Three days after Californians headed to the polls, key races in the primary election remained too close to call and experts warned the counting could continue for days.

In the governor’s race, the British-born conservative pundit Steve Hilton was narrowly leading with an estimated 60% of ballots counted by Friday morning. Xavier Becerra, a former US health and human services secretary under Joe Biden, followed closely behind, and billionaire Tom Steyer trailed behind the pair. The top two vote-getters will advance to the general election in November.