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The Washington Post newspaper says the FBI was looking for “classified documents relating to nuclear weapons” at Donald Trump’s Florida home when agents raided Mar-a-Lago on Monday, citing people familiar with the investigation.

The former US president has called for the “immediate” release of the federal warrant the FBI used to search his estate, hours after the Justice Department had asked a court to unseal the warrant, with Attorney General Merrick Garland citing the “substantial public interest in this matter.”

In messages posted on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote, “Not only will I not oppose the release of documents … I am going a step further by ENCOURAGING the immediate release of those documents.” He continued to assail the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago as “unAmerican, unwarranted and unnecessary.”

“Release the documents now!” he wrote.

The Justice Department request to unseal the search warrant paperwork is striking because it traditionally remains sealed during a pending investigation.

However, the department appeared to recognise that its silence since the search had created a vacuum for bitter verbal attacks by Trump and his allies, and that the public was entitled to the FBI’s side about what prompted Monday’s action at the former president’s home.

“The public’s clear and powerful interest in understanding what occurred under these circumstances weighs heavily in favor of unsealing,” said a motion filed in federal court in Florida on Thursday.

Should the warrant be released – the request is now with the judge – it could disclose unflattering information about the former president and about FBI scrutiny of his handling of sensitive government documents right as he prepares for another run for the White House.

During his successful 2016 campaign, he pointed frequently to an FBI investigation into his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, over whether she mishandled classified information.

It’s unclear at this point how much information would be included in the documents, if made public, or if they would encompass an FBI affidavit that would presumably lay out a detailed factual basis for the search.

The department specifically requested the unsealing of the warrant as well as a property receipt listing the items that were seized, along with two unspecified attachments.

How would the FBI get a search warrant?

To obtain a search warrant, federal authorities must prove to a judge that probable cause exists to believe that a crime was committed.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said he personally approved the warrant, a decision he said the department did not take lightly given that standard practice where possible is to select less intrusive tactics than a search of one’s home.

In this case, according to a person familiar with the matter, there was substantial engagement with Trump and his representatives prior to the search warrant, including a subpoena for records and a visit to Mar-a-Lago a couple of months ago by FBI and Justice Department officials to assess how the documents were stored. The person was not authorized to discuss the matter by name, and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Neither Trump nor the FBI has said anything about what documents the FBI might have recovered, or what precisely agents were looking for. But the former president complained again on Thursday about the search.

Trump, who for years has lambasted the FBI and sought to sow distrust among his supporters in its decisions, said the warrant was served and the search conducted despite his cooperation with the Justice Department over the search.

In a post to his Truth Social platform, Trump said that his “attorneys and representatives were cooperating fully” prior to the search, and that government officials “could have had whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, if we had it.”

The Justice Department has until Friday afternoon to alert the judge about whether Trump will object to the release.

A serving Metropolitan Police officer has pleaded not guilty to the rape of a woman on a beach while he was at a stag party .

Sergeant Laurence Knight, 33, is accused of raping a woman on Brighton beach while he was off-duty at a stag do on July 17 last year.

It is said that he met the woman and her friend while having drinks in the centre of Brighton, before they all went to the beach together afterwards.

They stripped to their underwear to go swimming in the sea during the early hours of the morning. It is then that the officer is accused of raping her, reports My London .

In a previous hearing it was reported that the two people did not know each other before the night of the alleged incident.

Knight, who is attached to Met Detention, the force’s custody command, was arrested on July 28 and has been suspended from duties whilst the investigation is ongoing.

Appearing today (Thursday, August 11) at Southwark Crown Court wearing a navy suit, he spoke to confirm his name, date of birth and to enter his not guilty pleas to both counts.

Following his arrest, the Met Police made a mandatory referral to the Independent Office for Police Conduct for a misconduct investigation to take place.

Chief Superintendent Pete Gardner, in charge of Met Detention, said: “We know people will rightly be concerned to hear about this very serious charge against a serving police officer.

“We absolutely share that concern and I am thankful to Sussex Police for their thorough investigation.

The Met’s Directorate of Professional Standards are fully aware and misconduct matters will be dealt with once the criminal proceedings have concluded.

The officer is suspended from duty.”

Knight, of Waltham Forest, denied one count of sexual assault and one count of rape.

A provisional trial date has been set for June 19, 2023.

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Hurt and disillusioned, the fastest man to ever run for New Zealand is contemplating what next after missing out on selection for the Commonwealth Games.

Eddie Osei-Nketia broke his dad Gus’s national 100m record at the world athletics championships in Oregon in July, but it was too late to make the NZ team for the Commonwealth Games.

Many argue he should have been selected for Birmingham before then, and that qualifying times set by Athletics New Zealand – based on the NZOC’s criteria of top 6 capability – are unreasonable, especially when it comes to the glamour track events that have considerably more depth than some field events.

The 21-year-old told Stuff from his base in Canberra that it was a “hurtful experience seeing people who are slower than you compete while you’re watching on TV”.

“It’s crazy, I ran a national record, and the Commonwealth Games has less people competing compared to the world championship. I felt like I should’ve at least had the opportunity to run, as well as Tiaan Whelpton, Georgia Hulls and Rosie Elliott. So many young athletes that deserve to go. How come I didn’t get a chance to expand on those experiences from worlds and make me better for other games?”

Osei-Nketia needed at least two B-standard qualifying times but only posted one (10.12sec) before the cut-off.

His 10.08 NZ record at the world champs was too late (interestingly, that time would have won silver in the men’s 100m at the past six Commonwealth Games), though former NZ marathon runner Tony Payne, who now races for Thailand, said other countries had much later selection deadlines.

“The New Zealand deadline was May 1, where Australia for example was June 12. This didn’t allow NZ athletes to compete in the Europe summer season to obtain standards. This was completely unfair, especially during a pandemic when New Zealanders were not allowed to leave NZ and return freely during the quarantine period.

“In addition, you want an athlete to be peaking at the championship, not months beforehand. The deadline makes zero sense from a performance perspective.”

As it transpired, NZ only took 17 athletes to Birmingham when their quota was 18.

“It feels like they’re not even putting in the effort to fill those spots; in fact it feels like they are gate-keeping and only taking medal chances, but then if you look at some selections they are not medal chances,” said Whelpton, the NZ resident record holder over 100m who ran a wind-assisted 10.09 over summer but has since struggled with a hamstring injury.

“It’s a bit silly really, it’s already hard enough as it is, especially in an event like the 100m.”

Osei-Nketia – like his coach Gary Henley-Smith – just wants what he feels are “reasonable qualifying standards”.

“It feels like instead of being open-minded and taking all the factors into account, they’re just shutting us down and looking only at numbers.”

Both Osei-Nketia and Whelpton say tough qualifying times are fine, but there is no allowance for factors such as the conditions they race in or competition they race against in NZ, or the likely level of competition at meets such as the Commonwealth Games being significantly reduced.

“Those A and B qualifying times, you can get those times in Diamond League meets in Europe and America but it’s so hard to get those times in NZ,” said Osei-Nketia, who beat Ferdinand Omanyala during the heats at the world championships then watched as the Kenyan went onto win the Commonwealth gold medal.

Whelpton, himself only 22, added: “I agree that wearing that singlet is an honor that should be earned, but we’re not asking for handouts, we simply want fairness. If there’s athletes that are good enough to be there, they should be there.”

As Whelpton notes, it’s a chicken and egg scenario.

Big performances come at big meets. However, they can’t get selected to go to those big meets, because they’re not posting the tough qualifying times in trying home conditions. If they attended these big meets, they’d likely go much quicker.

Case in point is Osei-Nketia.

“Up until the world champs in Eugene, Eddie’s season best was a 10.19 yet he managed to smash that over there,” Whelpton said.

“The effects of our tough conditions are never taken into consideration. For example, earlier this year I ran 10.43 into a massive headwind, and two weeks later I ran 10.09 with a tail wind that was over the limit and. Both cases are a total loss, for something completely out of my control. In the entire domestic season only one of my races had a legal tailwind, and in that race I ran the resident record.”

While not wanting preferential treatment, Osei-Nketia and Whelpton believe the depth and prestige of an event should be factored into qualifying criteria.

There were 10 heats for the men’s 100m in Birmingham, more than 70 starters, compared to, say, the women’s javelin, where there were eight – much easier to gain a top-6 finish.

“It’s a bit silly really, it’s already hard enough as it is, especially in an event like the 100m, which has by far the most depth,” said Whelpton, who felt it was senseless that top-6 finishes were equally valued across all events.

Payne added: “Eddie would be hyped as a medal contender. He should have been at Tokyo 2020, and he should have been in Birmingham 2022. The nation would have stopped to watch him run for a historic Commonwealth Games medal.”

Whelpton said Zoe Hobbs “did a great job proving how inspiring it can be for young athletes”.

Hobbs, who finished sixth in the women’s 100m final in Birmingham, was selected for the Games after only posting one B-standard (11.15sec in Hastings in February), but “extenuating circumstances” – world-class 60m indoor times and a windy 11.07sec at nationals – were deemed enough.

She did not disappoint, reaching the final and coming within 0.01 sec of her Oceania record (11.08sec) in her heat a week after being struck down with Covid-19.

Despite “only” finishing sixth, stories about Hobbs were among the most read Games content on Stuff, more so than some medal-winning performances in other sports or athletic events, highlighting the huge interest and appeal in 100m sprinting among the public.

“The 100m is the cream of the crop in the athletics world,” said Whelpton. “It’s the highlight event, the most watched and the most talked about. Naturally this means it’s also the most competitive.

“Imagine how cool it would’ve been to see both male and female Kiwis in the 100m finals, imagine how many children would be inspired, how many people would be talking about it. Almost every Commonwealth country featured in the men’s 100m except New Zealand, and it’s not that we don’t have good sprinters, they just weren’t sent, and that’s a shame.

“All the NZOC seems to care about is medals, but does this reflect what is truly important? And does this reflect what the public cares about? The public might have an entirely different perception of what they consider to be successful compared to the NZOC. At the end of the day the sport is about athletes, not medals. It’s the athletes they should be fighting for.”

Payne said the qualifying standards are flawed and make “no sense”.

“ANZ say the standards are based on ‘statistics’, however, they are based on the world rankings and with the built-in false premise that everyone will show up to the games. Many top athletes do not. So the standards in events that are truly competitive are far too hard.

“Another example is the 10,000m and the marathon, top athletes do not compete. However, the New Zealand A standard for both events is faster than the New Zealand record and for the marathon the Commonwealth Games record.

“Yet we do not send our sprinters (or other athletes in stronger events such as the 800m or the marathon). We choose to send the athletes in weaker events, where top six is far more attainable.

“If we send James Preston and Brad Mathas, New Zealand likely has two athletes in the 800m final.”

He agrees the best times are set at the big meets but NZ’s top sprinters can’t get to them. When they do, like Osei-Nketia and Hobbs have, they shine. But the system is geared toward them not getting to these events.

“The heart of the problem lies with the NZOC though,” Payne says.

“Top 6 should not apply to the 100m, 1500m etc. Selections are biased towards sports no one does. To be frank, the walk and throws, bowls, 3×3 basketball, etc. On this basis, should the All Whites bother going to the World Cup? They will never finish top six.

“Top 16 (or top 6) should not apply for sports that people actually participate in on a global scale. See the woods from the trees NZOC – and please, Athletics New Zealand, fight for our athletes to change the system.

“A blanket top 16 (Olympics or top 6 (Commonwealth Games) selection policy across all sports is weak. I think top 16, top 6 standards should also not be applied within track and field itself too. There should be exercisable discretion towards the harder events. No offence to those who participate in throws, walks etc but the 100m is way harder.

“Let’s not forget, World Athletics invited both Hobbs and Osei-Nketia to compete at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics in the 100m. One of the most watched sporting events on the planet. Those invitations were thrown into the rubbish bin and both are not Olympians.

“Income and endorsement deals lost. Imagine what that does to your mental health? I personally know people who have quit the sport, or suffered depression from the ruthlessness of the standards set by Athletics NZ and the NZOC.”

Athletics NZ does not have immediate plans to change the qualifying criteria, which it admits is “incredibly tough” and “quite statistical” , and is based on the NZOC’s top-six expectations.

Osei-Nketia wants to go to the Paris Olympics but needs to think about how he can get there.

“I’m so miserable right now, it feels like opportunities get cut compared to Australia where they get these opportunities and experiences to compete.”

While he wouldn’t consider running for Australia “at the moment”, running for NZ is “very tough right now and not what I thought it would be like”.

“I really wanted to go to England. It really hurts and I feel like my future is blind until I figure out what to do next. I don’t want to go into another season with false hope and then the same things happen.”

Whelpton says: “Eddie’s the fastest we’ve ever had and the fact that these thoughts have crossed his mind is just silly and so unnecessary.”

NRL player Manase Fainu has been found guilty of stabbing a Mormon youth leader in the back, puncturing the man’s lung, when a bloody brawl erupted in a Sydney church car park .

The Manly Sea Eagles hooker , 24, had denied plunging a knife into Faamanu Levi outside The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Wattle Grove, in Sydney’s south-west, on October 25, 2019. He pleaded not guilty to one count of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

On Thursday afternoon, after two hours of deliberations, the jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict. The offence carries a maximum penalty of 25 years behind bars, with a standard non-parole period of seven years.

Fainu showed no obvious reaction to the verdict, which his barrister Margaret Cunneen, SC, said would be appealed against “as a perverse verdict in view of the evidence”. She had read her client passages from a Bible in the moments before the jury filed into the courtroom.

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The Crown made a detention application, under new bail laws, which was opposed by Cunneen who argued Fainu was not someone who could “fly under the radar” and said it was “impossible to imagine that he would breach any bail condition” ahead of sentencing.

She said her client was supported by a God-fearing community who would be devastated by Thursday’s outcome. Two sheriff officers sat inside the courtroom on either side of the exit.

Due to the time, at 4.30pm (Australian time) on Thursday, Judge Nanette Williams adjourned Fainu’s detention application until Monday morning.

She said it could not be determined on Friday due to planned industrial action by prison officers.

“Tomorrow there is no point,” she said. “Were I to form a view that the detention application is made good, there’s simply no one to take Mr Fainu into custody, extraordinary as it might seem.”

She increased Fainu’s bail conditions, so he must report to police on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and is not to leave his address unless in the company of his mother and father, who were among those in court to hear the verdict.

As Fainu left court, met by over 30 family and friends and flanked by security and Manly teammate Josh Aloiai, his lawyer Paul McGirr said, “there’s nothing that he wants to say at this stage”.

Supporters of Fainu during his trial in Parramatta District Court included his agent Mario Tartak, Manly coach Des Hasler and Aloiai, who appeared on the same day as the Sea Eagles’ game against the Roosters and was one of seven players to sit out after objecting to wearing a pride jersey.

The jury was told Fainu had not played NRL since 2019 under the code’s no-fault stand-down policy.

During his day in the stand, Fainu claimed he had been at least 10 metres away from the brawl between his friends and Levi’s group.

He said two friends, including Uona “Big Buck” Faingaa, had earlier been kicked out of a charity dance in the church hall where Faingaa said he intended to pick up money for a concreting job.

Fainu said, after that incident, he jumped over a fence back onto church grounds expecting to collect the money himself, but his friends followed him over, and then he saw “like a brawl going on”.

“I backpedalled,” he said, adding that his NRL training was to walk away and not get involved.

Fainu said he ran after hearing “knife, knife” and claimed he did not know who stabbed the victim.

It is an agreed fact that Fainu had an operation on his left shoulder in September 2019 and was wearing a sling on the night of the stabbing. He was captured on CCTV jumping back over the fence and picking his sling up off the ground.

Levi gave evidence he and his best friend had walked two men to the front gate after a fight on the dance floor and told them to go home.

“I said … this is a church activity,” Levi said, adding that one shook his head and replied, “F— you.”

“I don’t know who was calling out, [saying], ‘Come out and see what you want,’ but I said, ‘Goodbye, we’re going back inside.’”

He said he had “never experienced this kind of thing”, and a fight later erupted next to his car.

Levi felt a stab to his lower right shoulder and said he “was in pain that I can’t explain”, but did not see who had knifed him.

His housemate, Tony Quach, said he saw Fainu holding a steak knife with a clenched fist, his right arm bent at a 90-degree angle and his left arm in a sling, looking “angry” as he stabbed Levi’s back.

Quach said he “recognised Manase” after the incident.

Levi’s friend Kupi Toilalo was “adamant the person with the knife was the person with the sling”, Crown prosecutor Emma Curran had submitted.

Cunneen had said Fainu’s sling “drew the eye” and was a “distinguishing feature” of the group of five men, but argued there was no one else’s DNA on it.

She told the jury her client had “really suffered by his position as a football player”.

“It was easy to blame it on him because some people knew him and the sling stood out.”

Sydney Morning Herald

Even by the zany standards of the Commonwealth Games, the composition of the 19-strong delegation from Niue, a surf-battered lump of coral in the South Pacific, is stunningly far-fetched.

Ten of the competitors are here for lawn bowls, a sport for which the island has just one active club. Of these bowlers, all but two are married to each other. It is less a serious athletic endeavour than a couples’ retreat on some sun-kissed Queensland grass.

Take Mark Blumsky, an expat Kiwi who, it would be fair to say, has lived a little.

In his time, this ebullient, weather-beaten 60-year-old has been a shoemaker, a horticulturalist, an MP for New Zealand’s National Party from 2004 to 2007, and the mayor of Wellington between 1995 and 2001. Most recently, he was High Commissioner to Niue, until he decided that his story would not be complete without an improbable sporting postscript.

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Having served as manager of the bowls team in Glasgow four years ago, Blumsky, an avowed “competitive animal”, could not quell an urge to grace the green himself. At last, here he is, accompanied by wife Pauline, a native Niuean – not to mention fixture of her family-run Falala Fa in the capital, Alofi City – as a newly-minted athlete. Pauline, also helplessly converted to the bowling craze, won a silver medal in triples at the Pacific Games in Papua New Guinea, an honour so profound for her island that she was chosen as the flag-bearer.

Together, they are staying in the Gold Coast athletes’ village, dispensing with the usual platonic protocols. “We’re sleeping there as a couple,” says Blumsky, without prompting, describing their lodgings less as functional, camp-like living, and more as an exotic resort. “It’s like Club Med down there,” he gushes. “Manicures, pedicures, massages, free lattes. You need to remind yourself you’re here to play bowls.”

His playing partner in the pairs, Dalton Tagelagi, just happens to be Niue’s minister of infrastructure. It is that type of place: a distant, self-governing rocky atoll, about a 3-hour flight flight from Auckland, where the population of 1600 are uncommonly close-knit. Before Blumsky could ask for Pauline’s hand in marriage, he had to receive the blessing of her uncle and even that of the Nieuan premier, since it was deemed exceptionally unusual for a diplomat to date a local woman. Part of the attraction, he says, lay in her feistiness in an argument. “Oh, I don’t hold back,” she says, grinning.

There is, however, a higher purpose behind their quest. Niue, like many of the Polynesian islands, adores the concept of the Commonwealth Games, which bestow a cachet and exposure it would never otherwise enjoy. When the Queen’s baton relay alighted there last November, local villagers performed their traditional takalo war dance to greet it. Blumsky, a proud adopted Nieuan who needed no second invitation to swap a politician’s suits for the local tropical dress – “go and live there, mate,” he says, “you’ll see what I mean” – is now looking to bowls, still struggling to shake off its geriatric image, to galvanise the younger islanders.

“The association with bowls back in Niue is, ‘That’s for old people,'” says Christine Hipa, a stalwart of the women’s four, whose husband Des is, yes, you guessed it, also on the team. “We have to change the mindset, and we’re slowly managing to do that. The whole point of being here in Australia is to test ourselves against the best, to see where we are internationally.”

Early signs have been, shall we say, chastening: Hipa and her compatriots were marmalised 44-1 by Scotland, before a 30-7 trouncing by Wales. Part of the problem is that the Nieuans practise on a green that falls far below international standards, with the dry, shallow topsoil scarcely conducive to a slick, rolled-out surface. “You can’t compare,” says Blumsky, who, with Tagelagi, succumbed 25-9 to Norfolk Island yesterday. “In Niue, you can be three inches offline and still get quite close to the jack. Here, you can be three inches off and end up six feet away.”

Niue desperately needs a benefactor, he acknowledges, who can fund training forays to New Zealand, although he is playing his own role as the resident fairy godfather. Blumsky has acquired expertise in hydroponics, the practice of growing crops above ground in water, to enrich the native diet. “I grow the veggies,” he says, proudly. “I was getting frustrated that I was eating cabbage every time I ordered a salad – it came in by boat, because it was the only vegetable that wouldn’t spoil. Now, we’re changing the health of a nation.”

It was never his intention, he admits, to be a bowler. “Every so often, when I was mayor of Wellington, I would open a bowling green and do the first roll,” he reflects. “I enjoyed it, but the whisky-and-milks in the clubhouse afterwards almost killed me.” Even today, as he chomps on a large post-match sandwich at Broadbeach Bowls Club, his comfortably-upholstered figure hardly suggests a life of scrupulous restraint. And why should it, as he and his fellow Nieuans savour the ultimate couples’ adventure?

“The women joined because they wanted to make sure the guys behaved,” he jokes. “I’m the only single one,” Tagelagi reminds him, deadpan. “Yeah,” Blumsky says, “and I’m keeping my eye on him.”

The Telegraph, London