WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government has notified Congress of its plans to pay $850 million of the several billion it owes to the United Nations, the largest payment the Trump administration would make to the world body since it demanded sweeping reforms in exchange for continued support as its largest donor.

The State Department laid out its plans to transfer $725 million as part of its dues to the regular U.N. budget and $125 million toward U.N. peacekeeping operations in Haiti and the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to notifications sent to lawmakers this month and obtained by The Associated Press.

The U.S. is behind on about $5 billion in dues related to its U.N. membership, with more than $2 billion owed toward the regular budget and $3 billion for peacekeeping operations, the United Nations says.

In February, the Trump administration made a single payment of $160 million shortly after U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned that the institution was facing “imminent financial collapse” unless its financial rules were overhauled or all 193 member nations paid their dues, a message clearly directed at the United States.

President Donald Trump and his allies have spent the past year and a half demanding drastic changes across the U.N., alarming many humanitarian workers and leading to severe reductions in programs and services.

Trump has publicly called out the world body for not living up to its potential. His administration did not pay anything to the United Nations in 2025, and it has withdrawn from U.N. organizations, including the World Health Organization and the cultural agency UNESCO, while pulling funding from dozens of others.

The notices sent Aug. 4 — first reported by Reuters — received some initial pushback from Republicans on Capitol Hill who argued that the appropriations do not fully address the administration’s concerns about what it claims is bloated U.N. staffing and ideological positions that run counter to Trump’s anti-woke agenda.

In particular, a GOP congressional aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because lawmakers have not yet decided how or if to respond to the notifications, said the notifications did not appear to be strong enough on the withholding of U.S. assistance to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees.

The Olympic sprinting legend could soon be bolting down the pitch in Wythenshawe

Olympic sprinting icon Usain Bolt has registered to play for a south Manchester Sunday league football team.

According to the Football Association (FA), eight-time gold medalist and 100m and 200m world record holder Bolt, now, 40, is one of the galaxy of stars who have signed up to play for Wythenshawe Vets.

The side was put together and is managed by former Manchester City and Republic of Ireland star Stephen Ireland.

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Former Manchester City players Joleon Lescott and Nedum Onuoha; former Manchester United title winner Antonio Valencia, Leicester City Premier League winner Marc Albrighton, ex-England striker Emile Heskey; and former Newcastle forward Papiss Cisse are among the stars who once played at the very top of the game who have appeared for the side, and who play in the Premier Division of the Cheshire Veterans Football League.

Bolt was not included on the 2026/27 squad list released by the club, which is affiliated to Wythenshawe FC, earlier this month and no official announcement has been made.

However, the FA has him listed as one of their registered players on their website.

The Manchester Evening News has contacted the club for comment.

After retiring from athletics in 2017, football fanatic and huge Manchester United fan Bolt pursued a career in professional football.

He scored two goals during a friendly for the Australian A-League team Central Coast Mariners in 2018 and signed a professional contract with the Southern Hemisphere club, before leaving the team just eight weeks later, ultimately hanging up his boots in early 2019.

Other former stars signed up for the current campaign include Maynor Figueroa, Jefferson Montero, Kieran Westwood, Paul McShane, Adrian Mariappa, Oumar Niasse and Martyn Waghorn.

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Wythenshawe FC owner Carl Barratt told the Manchester Evening News earlier this year: “Without financial aids, a club cannot exist, and I want to make sure that my managers, my players, my volunteers, everyone gets as much support as possible. We rely on funding, we rely on sponsorship, we rely on everything else.

“We happened to come across a Vets team which is helping make that a little bit easier, so suddenly people know who we are. When I go to people talking about sponsorship for this season, next season, I’m saying Wythenshawe and yes, they know we’ve got a successful women’s team, know we’ve got a successful men’s team, but they know ultimately at the moment we have a very popular Vets team.

“Ultimately, brand awareness is something which is key across many sort of businesses and what this does is it makes it an easy sell to them, the Vets team. But likewise, they’re just another team to me. One that I can utilise for the greater good of the club.”

Ireland previously told Sky Sports: “We’re all retired and it’s nice to get together to continue to play football, keep fit and also from the mental health side of things.

“A lot of lads can feel a bit stranded and alone when they come out of football. We all live in the same area so help each other.”

By CONNIE RUSK, ASSOCIATE SHOWBUSINESS EDITOR

Published: 22:43 BST, 21 August 2026 | Updated: 22:53 BST, 21 August 2026

Brooks Nader recreated her iconic Baywatch run as she headed to Club 55 in St Tropez on Friday. 

The actress, 29, who has recently been spotted filming the Baywatch reboot, cut a stylish figure in a sheer white lace beach cover-up for the outing. She teamed the look with statement sunglasses. 

Brooks was joined by her sister Grace Ann and her friends for the sun-soaked trip, with the group cooling off in the water at one point. 

They then headed to celeb hotspot Club 55, which is located on the shores of Pampelonne Beach.     

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The US actress has been sharing her vacation snaps and earlier this week enjoyed  a trip around the Amalfi Coast with her family.

She channelled her Baywatch character by wearing a plunging red swimsuit for some of the photos, showing off her incredible figure in the skimpy piece.

Brooks Nader recreated her iconic Baywatch run as she headed to Club 55 in St Tropez on Friday

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The actress, 29, who has recently been spotted filming the Baywatch reboot, cut a stylish figure on a sheer white lace beach cover-up for the outing

She also flaunted her luxury dinners and nights spent sipping cocktails on board the incredible boat.

The group headed for a meal at La Conca del Sogno beach club in the village of Nerano, where Brooks was fed by a waiter as she joked it was the ‘only way to eat in Italy’.

Later, she changed out of her swimsuit into a backless black dress for a ‘Champagne and Pearls’ evening on board the yacht. 

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Brooks has been busy shooting scenes for Baywatch in Malibu in recent weeks.  

She plays a character called Selene in the modern revival of the iconic series that made Pamela Anderson a global sex symbol in the 1990s.

The actress is newly single after splitting from actor Taron Egerton. 

Brooks and Taron’s romance began back in March, after they were set up on a date, and just last month he was pictured meeting her family during a dinner date in LA.

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However last month, the actor  was back on celeb dating app Raya after their whirlwind romance fizzled out.

Brooks was joined by her sister Grace Ann and her friends for the sun-soaked trip, with the group cooling off in the water at one point.

They then headed to celeb hotspot Club 55, which is located on the shores of Pampelonne Beach

She teamed the look with statement sunglasses

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Brooks has been busy shooting scenes for Baywatch in Malibu in recent weeks

She plays a character called Selene in the modern revival of the iconic series that made Pamela Anderson a global sex symbol in the 1990s

Baywatch star Brooks Nader is taking a break from Malibu beach for a summer break in Italy, sharing her vacation snaps as she enjoys a trip around the Amalfi Coast with her family

Love Is Blind UK is back on Netflix with eight fresh episodes for fans to binge watch

Love Is Blind UK star Jack Bradshaw has spoken out about disappearing from the show without warning his fiancée.

The hit Netflix experiment is back for its third season with a fresh batch of singles hoping to find love in the famous pods. As always, the contestants go on a string dates without ever laying eyes on each other.

Once they are ready to commit to one person, they leave the pods and get engaged. From there comes a series of relationship milestones including moving in together and meeting each other’s families.

Chef Jack, 30, proposed to Faye Domaille after sparking a strong connection in the pods. But the couple hit an unexpected hurdle when Jack “vanished” from their shared apartment the morning after Faye’s 29th birthday party.

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Faye soon realised that Jack’s phone location had been turned off, leaving her concerned about his whereabouts. “He’s literally vanished,” Faye said.

Jack has now explained his actions, admitting he went on a walk because he was “panicking” about formally meeting Faye’s parents later that day.

He told Tudum: “I started panicking and stressing about meeting Faye’s parents properly and being back on camera again. It felt like the walls were closing in on me. I needed to get out, disconnect, and just have some time by myself. “

The Cornwall-based star was also overwhelmed by living in the heart of Canary Wharf and needed a moment to breathe, so he turned his phone off and headed out.

“In Canary Wharf, I’m in this glass box, 43 stories up in the air,” he said.

“Can’t relax there. Go out to get fresh air and there are skyscrapers everywhere. There are cars, police cars, people. I’m walking along just stressing myself out.”

Although it felt like the right move at the time, Jack claims he felt “overwhelming guilt” when he finally turned his phone on and saw a several messages from his partner.

He said: “Faye is worried sick, and I get this overwhelming feeling of guilt about how I let her down. I wasn’t used to having somebody there who cares that much about me.”

Jack confessed: “Just seeing how one selfish decision in your mind can affect somebody…. And that’s the only way I can describe it. It was selfish. I was looking after number one.”

The first eight episodes of Love Is Blind season three are now streaming on Netflix, with the final three instalments set to air next Wednesday, August 26.

Love Is Blind: UK Season 3 is streaming on Netflix

1) Strength training

2) Taking creatine

3) Reading before bed

4) Keeping a positive attitude about ageing

5) Eating prunes

A fatal car crash and a censored rap album, seemingly unrelated and a year apart, have sparked what could be the largest revolt of Vietnam’s youth in living memory. Over the past ten days, millions have mobilised around the death of an 18-year-old student, caused by a former National Assembly deputy who walked away without charge. What began as isolated outrage has since put the country’s political system on trial.

On the evening of August 14, uniformed police cleared away bunches of flowers at the base of a tree near the centre of Hanoi. Later that night, groups of young people came back and laid more. Where these were removed, they started laying them at other trees and outside police stations. Then they started wearing white ribbons on their backpacks.

This tree – “Memorial tree 55” on Hanoi’s Nguyễn Huy Tự Street – is at the centre of a growing protest for gen Z in Vietnam. It marks the spot where, in May 2025, a black BMW crossed into oncoming traffic and hit a motorcycle carrying a father and his 18-year-old daughter, Do Ngoc Phuong Thuy. Mina, as she was widely known, lost her leg and died days later, shortly before she should have graduated from high school.

Over the next year there appeared to be no progress in the investigation of the incident, except that the driver was identified by the initials N.S.C. But social media users flooded into the information vaccuum, starting to link these initials to former National Assembly deputy Nguyễn Sỹ Cương. There was much online discussion of a government cover-up.

But by August 2026, the car crash and Mina’s death had almost faded from public memory. It may have stayed that way if hadn’t been for the heavyhanded decision of Vietnam’s minister for culture, Lam Thi Phuong Than, to all but ban a new album by rap artist “MCK”. This censorship against the most popular rap singer among Gen Z drew scrutiny to the culture minister – and from there attention moved to her husband, Nguyễn Sỹ Cương.

Within days, more than a million posts naming Cương spread across Threads and TikTok. One local person I spoke to, who for security reasons only wishes to be known by their pseudonym “Tam Khien”, says that young people across the country are outraged.

But, Tam Khien told me, it would be a mistake to view this sequence of events as outrage over one fatal crash, or even a single case of alleged corruption. Rather, it was the spark that lit up grievances with the state that had been present for years.

This is borne out by data from the Vietnam Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI), which shows how public attitudes have changed. For more than a decade, when asked which problems they view as the most urgent policy challenges, nationally representative samples have named poverty and hunger. But in 2024, corruption overtook these problems – named by 22.6% of respondents, up from under 5% the year before.

Top three issues of concern to people in Vietnam

While this number does not measure levels of corruption in Vietnam, it shows how it has come to dominate public debate. Combined with consistently low levels of confidence in the accountability of the government towards its citizens – rated as low as 0.47 out of 10 – the conditions were ripe for a single event to galvanise protest.

Creative protests

Vietnam’s constitution grants a right for public demonstrations, but the law needed to exercise it has neven been passed. In its place, a 2005 decree requires gatherings to be registered in advance – and protesters are routinely arrested and prosecuted for “disturbing public order”.

So it is clear to protesters in Hanoi that mass rallies are not a realistic option. Publicly accusing a powerful former official is risky, Tam Khien told me. Instead the emerging movement turned to more creative forms of protest, which confront the state with acts that are hard to prosecute.

They pinned the “Tree of Justice” – as Tree 55 has become known – on Google Maps (although pins have been deleted). They continued to lay in defiance of the authorities removing them – and when the flowers were removed they laid them at other trees. They also mark these other trees with the number 55 – an easily recognisable reference which is ambiguous enough to retain plausible deniability.

People changed their profile pictures to memes taunting officials, made paintings and artistic drawings of the crash victim to commemorate her loss and created a virtual “justice tree” that cannot be cleared away. When posts started being taken down, they switched to displaying their messages in Morse code or binary.

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Each of these actions was an adaptation to extensive efforts by the government to crack down on the movement: scrubbing the internet of related content and increasing the police presence at the crash site. Authorities were ordered to paint over the number 55 on trees. This has failed to quell the protests.

What next?

On the evening of August 17, state television VTV aired a rare public statement about the crash. Hanoi police confirmed that Cương had indeed been behind the steering wheel of the BMW. The statement announced that prosecutors had determined no criminal liability, but were vague as to the exact criteria for this decision.

Neither Nguyễn Sỹ Cương nor his wife have made a public statement about the crash. Meanwhile, the victim’s father appeared on camera saying he fully agreed with the government’s decision and had no complaints. But this was greeted by the protesters as scripted.

Vietnam is not Nepal, where a Gen Z movement occupied the streets and burned the parliament. But the resemblance to the youth movements that upended authoritarian politics from Nepal to Indonesia to Madagascar last year is undeniable.

Each began with a local trigger that would have gone nowhere without years of accumulated frustrations with their elites. Each was leaderless and mobilised quickly online. The groundswell of Vietnam’s Gen Z protest continues to grow and, as the protest is taking forms that are not easily policed, the state appears at a loss as to how to deal with them.

By PHILLIP NIETO, US POLITICAL REPORTER

Published: 22:18 BST, 21 August 2026 | Updated: 22:23 BST, 21 August 2026

A hand-shaped bruise discovered on the two-year-old daughter of Trump-endorsed Ohio Congressman Max Miller sparked a months-long child abuse investigation that ultimately failed to determine who injured her.

X-rays taken on February 19 confirmed that the girl had suffered a broken collarbone, while doctors identified what appeared to be a handprint and thumbprint across her right shoulder, according to police records reviewed by the Washington Post.

The markings led a Cleveland doctor to believe someone may have grabbed the toddler from behind, the outlet reported. 

Hospital staff alerted child welfare officials, who referred the case to police and launched parallel investigations into the possibility that the injury had been deliberately inflicted.

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Detectives focused on a five-day period in which the child moved between the homes of Miller and his ex-wife, Emily Moreno, but could not establish when or where the fracture occurred.

A child protection specialist initially told police the girl had been with her father when she was hurt and said it appeared at the time that the injury had been ‘inflicted by dad.’

Moreno told detectives that her daughter regularly said ‘Daddy’s angry’ and had also described her father’s home as ‘scary.’

The Daily Mail first revealed Moreno’s abuse allegations against Miller in May, publishing photos of the injuries she claimed were caused when he threw scalding water at her. 

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A hand-shaped bruise discovered on the 2-year-old daughter of Trump-endorsed Ohio Congressman Max Miller sparked a months-long child abuse investigation that ultimately failed to determine who injured her

The markings led a Cleveland Clinic doctor to believe someone may have grabbed the toddler from behind

Detectives focused on a five-day period in which the child moved between the homes of Miller and his ex-wife, Emily Moreno, but could not establish when or where the fracture occurred

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The Daily Mail first revealed Moreno’s abuse allegations against Miller in May, publishing photos of the injuries she claimed were caused when he threw scalding water at her

She also accused Miller of once holding a gun to her head while she changed their daughter’s diaper, but declined to file a complaint because she believed no one would believe her.

The child’s nanny offered another troubling detail, telling investigators that the girl consistently identified the red, angry face in a set of emotion toys as her father.

Miller denied harming his daughter and initially suggested that a car-seat strap or sudden braking by a reckless driver could have caused the bruise and fracture.

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He later turned his suspicions toward Moreno, telling investigators: ‘She did it. She’s guilty.’

Investigators ruled out Miller’s car-seat theory because it did not match the bruise pattern and concluded that the injury would have required ‘a high degree of impact,’ according to the Washington Post.

Police scrutinized library footage showing the girl moving both arms shortly after leaving Miller’s home, but the report did not explain whether detectives considered the possibility that she was injured after the visit.

Child welfare officials ultimately found the abuse claim against Miller unsubstantiated, listed the suspected perpetrator as unknown and closed the case. 

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The abuse allegations against Miller have transformed his once-safe Ohio Republican seat into an unexpectedly competitive midterm battleground.

Another famous face has been eliminated from this year’s Celebrity MasterChef, which is currently airing on the BBC

Welsh presenter Jason Mohammad has bid farewell to Celebrity MasterChef.

The first heat of the 2026 series has been taking place this week, with TV and radio host Jason, actor and author Joe Pasquale, The Wanted’s Jay McGuiness, weightlifter and Olympic medallist Emily Campbell and Love Island star Shakira Khan all competing for a place in the semi-final.

Jay was the first celebrity to face elimination this week, with Cardiff-born Jason soon following him out the door on Friday (August 21).

The latest episode saw the remaining four celebrities team up to cook a three-course menu for judges Grace Dent and Giorgio Locatelli.

“We are going to create our own mini restaurant, because if you stay in the competition, you’ll end up cooking in a real-life kitchen,” Giorgio explained, reports the Mirror.

Later, Grace and Giorgio welcomed food content creator Seema Pankhania to the kitchen, as she set the next challenge.

With her recipe content regularly going viral, each celebrity was tasked with recreating one of the chef’s technically challenging favourites. The recipes had been developed by Seema and were inspired by her travels.

Emily was tasked with a northern Thai classic, khao Soi – a spicy noodle broth topped with crispy chicken skin, while Jason was given Seema’s cabbage dumplings filled with ginger and Shaoxing wine-infused chicken, and served with egg fried rice.

Joe worked on a biscuit base for a dessert that was inspired by a well-known American shop-bought treat – a chocolate, peanut butter and caramel tart. Lastly, Shakira had to successfully recreate Seema’s most viral recipe, butter chicken with naan and kachumber salad.

Jason soon encountered some problems with his dish. Grace noted: “You had trouble in that round. I could see you beginning to become very stressed and I think that the fact that you’ve delivered this entire plate is really to be commended.”

Jason added: “That was a really tough one because I’ve never, ever made cabbage rolls.”

Unfortunately, Jason’s efforts weren’t enough to keep him in the running, as he became the next celebrity to be eliminated.

Shortly after his exit, he said: “Thank you so much. It’s been incredible. Thank you for having me… It’s been the best thing I’ve ever done.”

Giorgio praised Jason for his “instinctive” nature in the kitchen, before offering him an invitation to his own kitchen in the future.

Jason quipped: “As long as you don’t have a go at me, that’d be great!”

Celebrity MasterChef is available to stream on BBC iPlayer

A ferry service on Scotland’s west coast has been evacuated over a bomb threat after a passenger was rescued from the water.

Operator CalMac said a person was reported overboard on the MV Caledonian Isles 16:40 sailing from Brodick on the Isle of Arran.

The vessel’s fast rescue craft was launched to recover the passenger. The BBC understands that they then claimed there was a bomb on board.

CalMac said emergency protocols were put in place. The vessel was searched and 329 people were removed on foot when it berthed at Ardrossan.

Passengers from the ferry and others waiting at the port were taken to a nearby Asda car park by police while the search was carried out.

When this was complete, police declared that the situation had been resolved and allowed people back on board to collect their vehicles.