West Virginia officials suspended a school vaccination mandate Wednesday after a judge ruled that parents can cite religious beliefs to opt out of vaccines required for their children to attend classes. In issuing a permanent injunction in a lawsuit filed in June, Raleigh County Circuit Judge Michael Froble on Wednesday said children of families who object to the state's compulsory vaccination law on religious grounds will be allowed to attend school and participate in extracurricular sports. Froble ruled that a state policy barring parents from seeking religious exemptions violates the Equal Protection for Religion Act signed into law in 2023 by then-Republican Gov. Jim Justice.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he is barring South Africa from participating in the Group of 20 summit next year at his Miami-area club and will stop all payments and subsidies to the country over its treatment of a U.S. government representative at this year’s global meeting. Trump chose not to have an American delegation attend the recent summit hosted by South Africa, saying he did so because white Afrikaners were being violently persecuted. It is a claim that South Africa, which was mired for decades in racial apartheid, has rejected as baseless.

US presidential envoy Steve Witkoff, fresh from the triumph of the Gaza peace deal, held a phone call last month with a senior Kremlin official to suggest they work together on a similar plan for Ukraine — and that Vladimir Putin should raise it with Donald Trump.