Trent Alexander-Arnold out of England World Cup squad, Djed Spence in

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Trent Alexander-Arnold is set to be left out of England’s squad for the World Cup with Djed Spence included.

The Real Madrid full-back’s exclusion comes with Newcastle United defender Tino Livramento’s preferred, and with Manchester United’s Luke Shaw also not picked.

Spence’s inclusion comes after he suffered a broken jaw after a collision with Chelsea’s Liam Delap in Tottenham’s defeat at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday evening. He is expected to wear a protective mask for Sunday’s Premier League game against Everton.

Alexander-Arnold has not been called up to the England squad since June 2025, when he made his only appearance under Thomas Tuchel, as a substitute in a 1-0 win over Andorra.

An ankle injury during his final season at Liverpool prevented the right-back from being included in Tuchel’s first squad in March 2025, while a hamstring injury also kept him out of the October camp, but he has otherwise consistently not been selected by Tuchel.

The 27-year-old moved to Real Madrid from Liverpool last summer but experienced a difficult first season in Spain, providing five assists in 30 appearances across all competitions as the club finished the season without a trophy.

Alexander-Arnold made his international debut in 2018 and has been capped 38 times by England, though he has made only three starts at major tournaments, and was occasionally deployed as a central midfielder under previous manager Gareth Southgate.

Spence has made 43 appearances for Spurs this season but has started only one of their past five games, a 1-0 win over bottom club Wolverhampton Wanderers.

The 25-year-old made the last of his four England appearances against Uruguay in March, after making his senior debut in September.

‘A reward for Spence’s versatility?’

Analysis by Tottenham Hotspur correspondent Jack Pitt-Brooke

Tuchel handed Spence his England debut in Belgrade in September and he has won three more caps since then.

There is a lot to be said for Spence, who can play comfortably at either left-back or right-back, is a very gifted defender in one-v-one situations and carries the ball forward gracefully. There were times in the middle of last season when he looked like one of Tottenham’s best players.

But Tuchel openly admitted in November he “didn’t like it” when Spence appeared to ignore then-Spurs manager Thomas Frank after a league defeat by Chelsea. Spence has long faced questions about his attitude, dating back to the start of his career. And even this season at Spurs he has not necessarily been first choice.

Pedro Porro plays on the right when fit, and so Spence tends to play on the left when Destiny Udogie is unavailable. Perhaps it is Spence’s versatility that has won him his place in the squad.

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Supreme Court is only way to end Trump’s control of midterms

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What if Trump tries to overturn election results while ignoring court orders? ‘I have such a hard time believing that would happen,’ one judge said. ‘But I think you have to consider the possibility.’

North Carolina will start sending out the first general election mail ballots on Sept. 4 for the Nov. 3 midterms. Whether the voters who use those types of ballots in that state and across the country get disenfranchised will likely soon be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

President Donald Trump and his administration have been battling in federal court with voter rights groups and 24 states that are trying to prevent him from what clearly seems to be an unconstitutional federalization of our elections.

Trump, in an executive order in March, directed the Department of Homeland Security to compile state-by-state lists of eligible voters and then have the U.S. Postal Service develop rules about who can vote using mail ballots.

As always with Trump overreach, this has become a mess in every kind of way.

Trump is fighting a legal battle for control over mail-in voting

A federal whistleblower involved in the development of those rules has warned that they could cause “major disruptions” in voting and that the Trump administration seemed intent on hiding that, according to a letter to the Postal Service from U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat.

And there is also a major legal problem with Trump’s executive order: The U.S. Constitution says states run elections, not the president. Trump can’t just decide he has a new power and then act on it.

That prompts three very serious questions. Will the conservative-heavy Supreme Court stop Trump? Will Trump follow judicial orders? And will the Republican-controlled House and Senate force Trump to obey the courts?

To sort out where this goes next, I spoke to three former federal judges from the Article III Coalition, a good-government effort from Keep Our Republic to preserve an independent judiciary.

Will the Supreme Court eventually stop Trump’s election antics?

Former Judge John E. Jones III, who was chief judge for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, predicted a swift return to the Supreme Court for Trump’s executive order.

Procedural issues prompted a majority of the Supreme Court justices on Aug. 24 to block a federal judge in Boston from temporarily pausing Trump’s executive order. But by week’s end, that judge’s temporary restraining order was back in place – and Trump’s administration was appealing it.

Jones told me he expects the federal courts at every level to find Trump’s executive order unconstitutional.

“I struggle to find a scenario where the Supreme Court does anything other than find that this is a violation of Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution, in that these are executive agencies, and absent lawmaking by the Congress, the executive branch simply doesn’t have the authority to do this,” Jones said.

Retired Judge Liam O’Grady, who served in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, told me the Supreme Court might take control of the case directly, skipping over the appellate court, because the subject already reached the high court once and the midterms are looming.

“They may look at 60 days before an election and say, we now should decide this issue,” O’Grady said. “You would hope they would, because the states need direction.”

Former Judge Jeremy Fogel, who served in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, was leery of handicapping the Supreme Court on this because the justices could have put an end to the executive order the first time it reached them.

“I think they’re sending ambiguous signals,” Fogel told me. “That may be just because you’ve got justices in a lot of different places.”

Trump has spent years fighting the US voting system

Jones, who was still a judge when Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election in more than 60 court cases, said the federal judiciary had prepared back then for the potential wave of legal filings and will be ready again. And he pointed to recent controversies – aggressive federal agents demanding to inspect Wyoming’s primary election in August, the FBI’s seizure of 2020 ballots in Georgia’s Fulton County earlier this year – as potential harbingers for future cases.

“I think past is prologue, and given the administration’s repeated attempts to, in effect, federalize election administration, almost anything goes from this point on,” Jones said, adding that Trump is trying to drive a narrative that “elections are inherently fraudulent.”

O’Grady noted that the federal judge in Boston, while pausing Trump’s executive order with an Aug. 27 temporary restraining order, pointed out “that the government didn’t put in any evidence of fraud occurring in mail-in voting to substantiate the need to act so quickly.”

Fogel sees a Trump-led public influence campaign to question election integrity as a “coordinated effort to suppress the vote,” recalling how judge after judge in 2020 threw out Trump’s legal challenges for lack of evidence. He expects more of the same in November.

“I think it’s likely they’re going to use all of the levers available to prevent losing control of Congress,” Fogel said.

My last question for the judges worried Fogel: What if Trump tries to overturn the results of the midterm elections while ignoring court orders meant to stop that?

“I have such a hard time believing that would happen,” Fogel said. “But I think you have to consider the possibility that it might.”

Fogel and Jones saw two off-ramps for that kind of chaos.

For Fogel, it depends on “how much integrity” Trump’s Republican allies in Congress will show if he tries to defy court orders. Will Congress step in? “That’s the big question,” he said.

For Jones, he recalls the consequences that Trump’s attorneys faced for their actions in 2020. One big example: Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who led Trump’s 2020 legal challenges, was disbarred in 2024 for actions he took in that effort.

“Lawyers are going to have to think hard about whether they want to jeopardize, as we call in the trade, their ticket to practice law,” Jones warned. “I think lawyers are likely to be much more circumspect about diving into some of these potentially ill-considered cases because of the experiences in past elections.”

Follow USA TODAY columnist Chris Brennan on Bluesky, @bychrisbrennan.bsky.social, and on X, @ByChrisBrennan. Sign up for his weekly newsletter, Translating Politics, here.

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Tornado warning canceled in Burlington County, New Jersey, as severe storms hit Philadelphia region

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A tornado warning in Burlington County, New Jersey, was canceled Tuesday night as severe storms hit the Philadelphia region.

A severe thunderstorm watch for the Philadelphia region expired, but some severe thunderstorm warnings remain in effect for parts of the Delaware Valley.

Some of those storms will have heavy rainfall, gusty winds and frequent lightning. Heavy rain, damaging winds, hail, lightning, and even an isolated tornado are possible.

We are not yet at the point where you can shut down the air conditioning. In fact, it will likely be running quite a bit in the coming days.

NEXT big weather changes

The heat and storm chances will continue Wednesday and Thursday.

Storms will form each day and generally move from the northwest to the southeast as they ride around a large ridge of high pressure to the south.

Atmospheric conditions will be in place for severe storms at some point each day, but mainly through the afternoon and evening time frame.

All weather threats are possible across most of the region each day.

The ridge will slowly sink southward. By Thursday, a strong cold front will be able to cross the area and looks to start to push the threat for severe weather to the south, but it still includes Philadelphia and areas south.

The NEXT Weather team will be monitoring atmospheric conditions, and we’ll keep you updated with timing and impact throughout the week.

The good news is that the unsettled pattern looks to begin breaking down by Friday to make way for a relatively nice first weekend of September with highs near 80 degrees under partly cloudy skies and lower humidity levels.

Here’s your 7-day forecast:

Tuesday: NEXT Weather Alert for storms/heat. High 92

Wednesday: NEXT Weather Alert for storms. High 84, Low 73

Thursday: NEXT Weather Alert for storms/heat. High 90, Low 72

Friday: Showers south. High 87, Low 73

Saturday: Partly cloudy. High 82, Low 68

Sunday: Mostly sunny. High 79, Low 65

Monday: Mostly sunny. High 80, Low 61

NEXT Weather Radars

Hourly Forecast

Get the latest weather info on the CBS News Philadelphia app.

In:

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‘Wheel of Fortune’ Announcer Jim Thornton Suspended

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‘Wheel of Fortune’
Announcer Jim Thornton Suspended

Published
September 1, 2026
2:05 PM PDT
|
Updated
September 1, 2026
4:08 PM PDT

Jim Thornton — the longtime “Wheel of Fortune” announcer — has been suspended by Sony Pictures Television Studios … TMZ has learned.

The studio tells TMZ … “We have recently been made aware of allegations concerning Jim Thornton. He has been suspended from Wheel of Fortune and we are recasting while we conduct a thorough investigation.”

Sony Pictures Television did not provide a reason for his suspension from the show.

However, we’ve learned the alleged incident arose while Thornton was on a commercial flight back in May, and a passenger complained to a flight attendant about Thornton.

Sources with direct knowledge tell us the pilot called ahead to have law enforcement meet Thornton when they arrived at the gate.

We’re told officers questioned Thornton — who was wearing a ‘Wheel’ jacket at the time — but he was eventually released.

American Airlines tells us, “On May 14, American Airlines Flight 1276 was met by law enforcement upon arrival at Los Angeles International Airport following concerns reported by a customer onboard.”

Thornton joined ‘WoF’ in 2011 after the death of longtime announcer Charlie O’Donnell — who was with the show from 1975 to 1980 and 1989 to 2010.

While mostly heard and not seen on the program, Thornton did host one segment of a 2023 program when one of the contestants — a woman named Sarah Ward — wanted to meet him. Pat Sajak, then the host of the show, served as an announcer for the round.

Thornton also served as an announcer briefly on “The Price Is Right,” “The Soup,” and “The Cleveland Show.” He also lent his voice to Pixar for the classic animated movie “Monsters, Inc.” … serving as a commercial announcer in the flick.

We’ve reached out to Thornton … so far, no word back.

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