President Donald Trump said that he will send troops to Portland, "authorising Full Force, if necessary" to handle "domestic terrorists" as he expands his deployments to more American cities.

Oregon Democratic Governor Tina Kotek responded by saying Trump is abusing his authority by ordering troops into a city that she said is doing "just fine" on its own.

She was joined by other government, police and business leaders who all said soldiers are not needed and Trump is presenting a patently false picture of the city.

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Trump made his announcement on social media, writing that he was directing the Department of Defense to "provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland."

Trump said the decision was necessary to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, which he alleged are "under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists."

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for details on Trump's announcement, such as a timeline for the deployment or what troops would be involved.

Governor says troops not needed

In an afternoon news conference, Kotek said she directly told Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem earlier in the day that troops are not needed and she believes he does not have the authority to deploy the military there.

"We can manage our own local public safety needs. There is no insurrection. There is no threat to national security," Kotek told reporters.

The governor said she "tried to understand his reasoning" during their conversation and his response was just, "Let's keep talking."

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"This is an American city. We do not need any intervention," Mayor Keith Wilson said at the news conference. "This is not a military target."

Kotek said the president did not give a timetable for troops arriving. She said she told him the Oregon National Guard is not needed and she does not plan to call it up.

Trump, however, previously deployed guard soldiers and active duty Marines in Los Angeles even though California Governor Gavin Newsom opposed it. The federal government is appealing a judge's ruling that Trump's use of the guard was illegal.

Kotek urged the public to stay calm, saying any kind of property damage or violence will not be tolerated.

"Let's not take the bait," she said. "Let's not respond to what the president is trying to do."

Residents ask, 'Where's the emergency?'

Earlier on, there was no sign of any federal presence downtown, where people jogged along the Willamette River, relaxed by a riverside fountain or rode bikes on a sunny fall day.

"Where's the emergency?" asked resident Allen Schmertzler, 72, who said he was "disgusted" by the president's decision.

Another, John McNeur, 74, called Trump's statement "ridiculous." He pointed out that he was taking "a leisurely stroll" along the river on a peaceful, sunny day.

"This place is not a city that's out of control," he said. "It's just a beautiful place."

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Trump has also named Chicago and Memphis

Trump previously threatened to send the National Guard into Chicago but has yet to follow through. A deployment in Memphis, Tennessee, is expected soon and will include only about 150 troops, far less than were sent to the District of Columbia for Trump's crackdown on crime or to Los Angeles in response to immigration protests that turned violent with the troops' arrival.

In Memphis, about 80 to 100 people marched to a plaza in front of City Hall to protest the expected arrival next week of the guard and more than a dozen federal law enforcement agencies, ranging from immigration to drug enforcement.

Protesters held signs with messages such as "Resources Not Task Forces" and "Memphis don't need no occupation, Memphis don't need no government control" — a play on the Pink Floyd song "Another Brick in the Wall."

Speakers said beforehand that instead of federal troops and agents, Memphis needs more funding for education, crime prevention, youth services and hospitals. The Oregon officials made similar comments.

Few details from the Pentagon

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said the Department of Defence would provide information and updates when available.

"We stand ready to mobilise U.S. military personnel in support of DHS operations in Portland at the President's direction," Parnell said.

A spokesperson for the Oregon National Guard, Lt. Col. Stephen Bomar, said via email that "no official requests have been received at this time" for Guard support. "Any requests would need to be coordinated through the Governor's office," he added.

Oregon's congressional delegation, with the exception of GOP Representative Cliff Bentz, demanded that the Trump administration keep federal agents and troops out of Portland.

"This unilateral action represents an abuse of executive authority, seeks to incite violence, and undermines the constitutional balance of power between the federal government and states," the Democratic lawmakers wrote in a letter to Trump, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Noem.

Protests in Portland

Portland, population 636,000, was the site of long-running and sometimes violent racial justice protests following George Floyd's killing by Minneapolis police in 2020. The Trump administration sent hundreds of agents, including from the U.S. Border Patrol, for the stated purpose of protecting the federal courthouse and other federal property from vandalism.

Recent demonstrations have been far more muted and focused on the area around the ICE building. It's located outside downtown, which was the heart of the 2020 protests. Its main entrance and ground-floor windows have been boarded up and were previously tagged with graffiti.

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Some federal agents have been injured and several protesters have been charged with assault. Some demonstrators also say they been injured. When protesters erected a prop guillotine earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security called it "unhinged behavior."

Police Chief Bob Day said at the news conference that his agency does not participate in immigration enforcement. He said afterward that Federal Protective Services is responsible for the ICE building and police would intervene only against vandalism or criminal activity in the surrounding area.

The city said this month that it would issue a land use violation notice to its ICE building because it was used to detain people overnight or for more than 12 hours — violations of its conditional land use approval. DHS said detainees are briefly processed before being sent to other detention facilities.

Portland is one of a number of so-called sanctuary cities. There is no strict definition for sanctuary cities, but the term generally describes places that limit cooperation with ICE.

Portland officials stress the city's recovery

City groups and officials have sought to highlight the recovery of the downtown area since 2020.

This summer was reportedly the busiest for pedestrian traffic since before the pandemic, and overall violent crime from January through June decreased by 17 per cent compared with the same period in 2024, a recent report from the Major Cities Chiefs Association found. The downtown has seen a decrease in homeless encampments.

Since the September 10 assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Trump has escalated efforts to confront what he calls the "radical left," which he blames for political violence.

"We're going to get out there and we're going to do a pretty big number on those people in Portland," Trump said last week in the Oval Office. He called such people "professional agitators and anarchists."

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Running a garden hose for 12 minutes uses up one person’s total daily average.

The United Nations reimposed sanctions on Iran early on Sunday over its nuclear program, further squeezing the Islamic Republic as its people increasingly find themselves priced out of the food they need to survive and worried about their futures.

The sanctions will again freeze Iranian assets abroad, halt arms deals with Tehran, and penalise any development of Iran’s ballistic missile program, among other measures.

It came via a mechanism known as “snapback,” included in Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, and comes as Iran's economy already is reeling.

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Iran's rial currency sits at a record low, increasing pressure on food prices and making daily life that much more challenging.

That includes meat, rice and other staples of the Iranian dinner table.

Meanwhile, people worry about a new round of fighting between Iran and Israel — as well as potentially the United States — as missile sites struck during the 12-day war in June now appear to be being rebuilt.

Activists fear a rising wave of repression within the Islamic Republic, which already has reportedly executed more people this year than over the past three decades.

Sina, the father of a 12-year-old boy who spoke on condition that only his first name be used for fear of repercussions, said the country has never faced such a challenging time, even during the deprivations of the 1980s Iran-Iraq war and the decades of sanctions that came later.

“For as long as I can remember, we’ve been struggling with economic hardship, and every year it’s worse than the last,” Sina told The Associated Press. “For my generation, it’s always either too late or too early — our dreams are slipping away.”

Iran sanctions set to ‘snapback’

Snapback was designed to be veto-proof at the UN Security Council, meaning China and Russia could not stop it alone, as they have other proposed actions against Tehran in the past.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called them a “trap” for Iran on Saturday.

France, Germany and the United Kingdom triggered snapback over Iran 30 days ago for its further restricting monitoring of its nuclear program and the deadlock over its negotiations with the US.

Iran further withdrew from the International Atomic Energy Agency monitoring after Israel’s war with the country in June, which also saw the US strike nuclear sites in the Islamic Republic.

Meanwhile, the country still maintains a stockpile of uranium enriched up to 60 per cent purity — a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90 per cent — that is largely enough to make several atomic bombs, should Tehran choose to rush toward weaponisation.

Iran has long insisted its nuclear program is peaceful, though the West and IAEA say Tehran had an organized weapons program up until 2003.

The three European nations on Sunday said they “continuously made every effort to avoid triggering snapback."

But Iran “has not authorised IAEA inspectors to regain access to Iran’s nuclear sites, nor has it produced and transmitted to the IAEA a report accounting for its stockpile of high-enriched uranium.”

Tehran has further argued that the three European nations shouldn’t be allowed to implement snapback, pointing in part to America’s unilateral withdrawal from the accord in 2018, during the first term of President Donald Trump’s administration.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio praised the three European nations for “an act of decisive global leadership” for imposing the sanctions on Iran and said “diplomacy is still an option.”

“For that to happen, Iran must accept direct talks," Rubio said.

However, it remains unclear how Tehran will respond Sunday.

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“The Trump administration appears to think it has a stronger hand post-strikes, and it can wait for Iran to come back to the table,” said Kelsey Davenport, a nuclear expert at the Washington-based Arms Control Association. “Given the knowledge Iran has, given the materials that remain in Iran, that’s a very dangerous assumption.”

Risks also remain for Iran as well, she added: “In the short term, kicking out the IAEA increases the risk of miscalculation. The U.S. or Israel could use the lack of inspections as a pretext for further strikes.”

Hunger and anxiety grow in Iran

The aftermath of the June war drove up food prices in Iran, putting already expensive meat out of reach for poorer families.

Iran's government put overall annual inflation at 34.5 per cent in June, and its Statistical Center reported that the cost of essential food items rose over 50 per cent over the same period.

But even that doesn't reflect what people see at shops.

Pinto beans tripled in price in a year, while butter nearly doubled.

Rice, a staple, rose more than 80 per cent on average, hitting 100 per cent for premium varieties.

Whole chicken is up 26 per cent, while beer and lamb are up 9 per cent.

“Every day I see new higher prices for cheese, milk and butter," said Sima Taghavi, a mother of two, at a Tehran grocery.

“I cannot omit them like fruits and meat from my grocery list because my kids are too young to be deprived.”

The pressure over food and fears about the war resuming have seen more patients heading to psychologists since June, local media in Iran have reported.

“The psychological pressure from the 12-day war on the one hand, and runaway inflation and price hikes on the other, has left society exhausted and unmotivated,” Dr. Sima Ferdowsi, a clinical psychologist and professor at Shahid Beheshti University, told the Hamshahri newspaper in an interview published in July.

Executions surge in 2025

Iran has faced multiple nationwide protests in recent years, fueled by anger over the economy, demands for women's rights and calls for the country's theocracy to change.

In response to those protests and the June war, Iran has been putting prisoners to death at a pace unseen since 1988, when it executed thousands at the end of the Iran-Iraq war.

The Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights and the Washington-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran put the number of people executed in 2025 at over 1,000, noting the number could be higher as Iran does not report on each execution.

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President Donald Trump plans to meet with the top four congressional leaders at the White House on Monday, one day before the deadline to fund the federal government or face a shutdown.

The meeting involving House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune as well as House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was confirmed on Saturday by a White House official and two other people familiar with the planning.

They were granted anonymity to discuss a meeting that has not been announced.

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“President Trump has once again agreed to a meeting in the Oval Office. As we have repeatedly said, Democrats will meet anywhere, at any time and with anyone to negotiate a bipartisan spending agreement that meets the needs of the American people,” Schumer and Jeffries said in a joint statement on Saturday night.

“We are resolute in our determination to avoid a government shutdown and address the Republican healthcare crisis. Time is running out.”

The meeting was first reported by Punchbowl News.

The parties have been in a standoff for days as Democrats, namely in the Senate, have refused to offer the necessary votes to pass a funding measure that would keep the government open beyond Tuesday.

Absent any action, a shutdown would begin at 12:01am ET (2.01pm AEST) on Wednesday.

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Democrats had secured a meeting with Trump until Republican leaders intervened and the president called it off.

But Schumer spoke privately with Thune on Friday, pushing the majority leader to get a meeting with Trump scheduled because of the approaching funding deadline, according to an aide for Schumer.

“As rank-and-file Democrats begin to question their leadership’s unsustainable position, Sen. Schumer is clearly getting nervous,” Ryan Wrasse, a spokesman for Thune, responded Saturday night.

“There’s an easy way out, and they’ll get a chance to take it next week.”

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Democrats, believing they have leverage, have insisted on key health care provisions in exchange for their votes.

They want an extension of subsidies that help low- and middle-income earners purchase insurance through the Affordable Care Act.

Democrats are also insisting on reversing cuts to Medicaid that were included the GOP’s signature tax measure earlier this year.

Republicans say those demands are nonstarters and that they are willing to have a conversation with Democrats on those issues separate from government funding talks.

The GOP is asking for a straight extension of current funding for seven weeks.

Earlier in the week, Johnson acknowledged he had encouraged Trump not to meet with the Democratic leaders.

“He and I talked about it at length yesterday and the day before. I said, look, when they get their job done, once they do the basic governing work of keeping the government open, as president, then you can have a meeting with him,” Johnson said on the Mike & McCarty Show in his home state of Louisiana.

“Of course, it might be productive at that point, but right now, this is just a waste of his time.”

And Thune, R-S.D., had said earlier in the week that he “did have a conversation with the president” and offered his opinion on the meeting, which he declined to disclose.

“But I think the president speaks for himself, and I think he came to the conclusion that meeting would not be productive,” Thune said.

Democrats have expressed confidence that voters would blame Trump and Republicans for any disruptions in federal services, even though that’s not at all guaranteed.

Republicans, on the other hand, had been heading toward the work week with plans in the Senate to keep showcasing Democrats' refusal to agree to the stopgap measure, while the House GOP planned to stay away from Washington in a show of their own unwillingness to engage Democratic alternatives.

That too, came with potential political drawbacks for House Republicans, as Democrats hammered them for being, as Jeffries said, “on vacation.”

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She didn’t think Kāinga Ora was serious when it threatened to evict her for the DIY.

A man and woman have died and three people have been injured after a two-car crash north of Perth.

A Suzuki Baleno and an Isuzu D-Max ute collided on Indian Ocean Drive on Wedge Island about 2.40pm (AWST) yesterday.

The road is the only one on the island that is just 400 metres long.

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The 46-year-old male driver and 47-year-old female passenger of the Suzuki sustained critical injuries and died at the scene.

The 64-year-old female driver of the ute and three passengers sustained minor injuries and were taken to Joondalup Health Campus on the mainland.

Wedge Island is popular with campers who look to stay on the beach or in shacks, and is also popular for those who want to go 4WD driving.

Authorities are investigating the incident and urging any witnesses or anyone with dash cam or mobile footage of the incident to contact Crime Stoppers.

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The OECD warns weak boardroom skills are stifling innovation and growth.

A judge said the offending was a ‘gross breach of trust’ between a father and a daughter.

With nothing but grit, muscle and an iron jaw, a hugely popular Egyptian wrestler geared up for an extraordinary challenge yesterday: pulling a 700-ton ship across the water with a rope held only by his teeth.

“Today, I have come to break the world record,” Ashraf Mahrous said in an interview in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Hurghada after the challenge.

It was no easy task but Ashraf Mahrous, also known by his nickname Kabonga, has dazzled before with his astonishing strength. Earlier this year, he pulled a train. He has also singlehandedly pulled a locomotive and four years ago, a truck.

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With each achievement, his popularity has soared — children run after him in the streets, where he's known simply as “strong man.”

With the ship pull, Mahrous, a 44-year-old native of the port city of Ismalia, hopes to get yet another recognition from the Guinness World Records.

A triumph by the Red Sea

The scene was set at the shore in Hurghada. Mahrous first pulled a 700-ton ship, and to affirm his challenge he pulled two ships weighing approximately 1150 tons together.

“I pulled them both, thanks to God, to prove to my friends and the whole world that God blessed me by being the strongest man in the world,” Mahrous said.

He said the current Guinness World Record is a 614-ton ship set in 2018.

Mahrous said he will send videos and photos of his attempt to Guinness World Records to be evaluated.

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In preparation for the feat, Mahrous followed a protein- and iron-rich diet, consuming at least a dozen eggs, two whole chickens, and 5 kilograms of fish every day — all while training for two hours, three times a day.

It wasn't his first ship pull. Six years ago, he tried for two hours before he managed to pull a 4000-ton ship in the water, a rope strapped to his shoulders, for about 30 metres. The event was caught on video.

″I grunted and yelled as I pulled the ship, and I spoke to it, saying ‘It’s either me or you today,’" he told The Associated Press recently at his local gym in Cairo, where he trains daily.

Mahrous believes that speaking with the object he pulls beforehand helps him establish a connection and is key to his success. “It’s important for me to treat the object that I will pull as part of my body that moves along with my heart beat,” he said.

An extraordinary child

Mahrous, 190 centimetres tall and weighing 155 kilograms, said his strength emerged early.

As a child, he would carry his friends for fun and haul heavy loads, several gas cylinders at once on a wheelbarrow. He was nine when his father lost his job as a contractor in Iraq and after that, Mahrous began knocking on doors, offering to lift heavy items for some cash.

Once, he accidentally broke a friend’s arm when he tried to pull him as they played. He helped people move bricks, sandbags and other heavy materials — and he was fast. He loved sports and trained in kung fu, kickboxing and even established a wrestling team in Cairo.

It was only when his friends saw him easily flip giant tires 10 times in a row in a deserted courtyard at their gym and push a car using only a finger that they encouraged him to go for a world record.

“I was inspired by people who broke records and felt like they are no better than me,” he said. Now he's less fearful of injuries and more concerned about failing to accomplish a pull.

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Past recognitions

In March, he was formally recognised by Guinness World Records for the heaviest rail pull: He pulled a train weighing 279 tons with a rope held by his teeth for a distance of nearly 10 metres. At the time, he received two other certificates, for the heaviest locomotive pull and for the fastest 100-metre road vehicle pull.

Mahrous, who is also president of the Egyptian Federation for Professional Wrestlers, was previously recognised by Guinness in June 2021, for pulling a 15,730-kilogram truck with his teeth. And in February 2024, the international franchise recognised him for cracking and eating 11 raw eggs in 30 seconds.

He wears a mouthguard during pulling events but says he has no concerns about his teeth. Instead of going to a dentist, he uses a miswak — a traditional teeth-cleaning twig rich in anti-bacterial compounds that help prevent decay.

He says he takes no supplements but eats, sleeps and works out at least twice every day.

His ambitions are far from over. Next, he plans to send a request to the Egyptian presidency for permission to pull a 263,000-ton submarine.

He also hopes someday to pull a plane using only his eyelid muscles.

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Sir Tumu Te Heuheu died aged 84, leaving a legacy of calm leadership.