1 Karoline Leavitt Stepping Down As White House Press Secretary
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is stepping down at the end of August, President Trump announced yesterday, marking one of the highest-profile exits of his second term with the midterm elections less than three months away. Trump said in a social media post that Leavitt was leaving so she could spend more time with her young children and family, a decision he said he understood and respected. He praised her as one of the best press secretaries in the history of the office and said she would stay on as one of his top outside advisers and an influential voice in the Republican Party heading into November. Leavitt, 28, is the youngest person ever to hold the role and one of only eight women to serve in it. She has been press secretary since the start of Trump's second term in January 2025, making her his second-longest-serving press secretary.
2 Man Accused Of Killing Wife And Child At In-Home Daycare Center In Minnesota
A man who ran an in-home daycare with his wife is believed to have killed his wife and their young daughter before taking his own life while other children were inside the home, police in Minnesota said yesterday. Officers responded to a report of a stabbing at the daycare in Hopkins around 9 a.m. and found two adults and a child dead. Police believe a third victim, a 78-year-old woman found dead at a home in the nearby city of Burnsville, is connected to the same case. The two victims at the daycare, a 41-year-old woman and a 7-year-old girl, were found fatally stabbed in the basement, while the 41-year-old male suspect was found dead upstairs of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Six other very young children who were at the daycare at the time were unharmed and have since been reunited with their parents. It’s not yet clear whether any of them witnessed the violence.
3 Marion, Kansas Agrees To Pay $850-Thousand Over Raid On Newspaper's Office Three Years Ago
A small Kansas town has agreed to pay $850-thousand to a former newspaper reporter to settle her lawsuit over a 2023 police raid on her paper's offices that sparked a national debate about press freedom. Retired Marion County Record reporter Phyllis Zorn argued the raid violated her constitutional rights and said the stress brought back life-threatening seizures. The town's police chief had claimed he was investigating possible identity theft, but authorities later found the raids were not legally justified. The chief resigned, and the publisher's 98-year-old mother died the day after the raids. The county previously agreed to pay more than $3-million across related lawsuits.