• Fall Classic kicks off with Game 1 in Toronto

• Experts’ predictions: Dodgers or Blue Jays?

• US v Canada politics continues by other means

• Reach out to David on Bluesky or email him

It’s a numbers game

Here’s another stat set I heard on the radio today on my way home from the day gig. The last four teams to sweep their league championship series and then faced a team that went seven games in their league championship series, all lost!

Vilnius and Kaunas airports closed down after balloons drift into country’s airspace for third time this month

Lithuania closed its two biggest airports on Friday and shut crossings on its border with Belarus after helium weather balloons drifted into its territory, the third such occurrence in the Baltic state this month.

European aviation has repeatedly been thrown into chaos in recent weeks by drone sightings and other air incursions, including at airports in Copenhagen, Munich and the Baltic region.

Justice department targets two Democratic states holding off-year elections after requests from state Republicans

The Department of Justice is preparing to send federal election observers to California and New Jersey next month, targeting two Democratic states holding off-year elections following requests from state Republican parties.

The department announced it was planning to monitor polling sites in Passaic county, New Jersey, and five counties in southern and central California: Los Angeles, Orange, Kern, Riverside and Fresno. The goal, according to the department, is “to ensure transparency, ballot security, and compliance with federal law”.

Perhaps taking an extended holiday after being sacked by Nottingham Forest would have been a more sensible next step for Nuno Espírito Santo. Rather than being on a peaceful cruise, he is captaining a sinking ship with his West Ham defenders playing their role by being all at sea in defeat by Leeds.

Brenden Aaronson and Joe Rodon were allowed space in the box to put Leeds two up within a quarter of an hour. Leeds faded in the second half, offering West Ham a chance to fight back but the visitors lacked quality in the final third and could muster only a late consolation goal through Manuel Fernandes. The defeat leaves West Ham second bottom of the Premier League nine games into their worst start to a season in 52 years, and their only win came against their current head coach.

Use of USS Gerald Ford along with fighter jets comes as president plots strikes against alleged cartels on land

The Pentagon said on Friday that it was deploying the United States’s most advanced aircraft carrier to the Caribbean, a major escalation in the Trump administration’s war against drug cartels that provides the resources to start conducting strikes against targets on the ground.

The move will bring the USS Gerald Ford carrier, with dozens of stealth fighter jets and surveillance aircraft, in addition to other warships that accompany the carrier, to the coast of Venezuela as it nears the end of its current deployment in the Mediterranean.

Very few have worked out how to contain Manchester City’s striker. As past opponents attest, there are no easy solutions

No coach has found a way to stop Erling Haaland in his past 12 matches, the striker scoring in each and 22 times in all competitions for club and country. Pep Guardiola knows most about the Norwegian’s talents and jokingly suggested a plan to keep him out: “Four centre-backs.” There are no straightforward answers, especially as so many have tried and failed.

On Sunday Aston Villa and Unai Emery will be tasked with formulating a strategy to keep Haaland quiet. Not that the Manchester City player is particularly perturbed by not being involved for much of a match. His touches are infrequent but very often telling. The focus generally against Haaland is preventing the ball from reaching him but with City’s array of creative talents, that is easier said than done.

I tested popular apps, earplugs and a speaker for under a pillow to uncover the secret to getting the elusive rest I need

• The best sleep masks in the US: I spent six weeks testing 24 masks, and these are my favorites

• Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things

I’ve struggled with a lack of sleep and its after-effects for years. Besides a chronic pain condition that interferes with my sleep schedule, my sensitivity to sound and light means that it doesn’t take much to snap me out of slumber after I get there. At least I’m in good company: according to the National Institutes of Health, more than 50 million Americans struggle with such sleep disorders.

After trying almost everything, I finally turned to tech about a year ago. I had skeptically dismissed these sleep-focused devices as snake oil – and some are – but a few have been genuinely helpful. From simple noise-canceling earplugs to a headband that literally interferes with your brain waves, here are the tech tools that have helped me fall asleep and get the elusive rest I need.

⚽️ Updates from this 8pm BST KO at Elland Road
⚽️ Premier League table | Email John

More Daniel Farke, speaking to Sky, and an explanation of his goalkeeping selection: “First of all, we have to say Karl Darlow is always reliable and done a really solid job when we needed him. We make no secret out of it that we have signed [Lucas] Perri as number one. Overall we had a difficult week. We had a few players struggling with a few physical problems. We tried to find a good mix. We cannot afford to play without all of them.

Andy Irving is a cult hero at West Ham. Ironically so far, though the club are calling out for a hero who isn’t called Jarrod Bowen.

The Louvre heist, daily life in Gaza, Russian strikes on Kyiv and sumo in London: the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

Warning: this gallery contains images some readers may find distressing

Nearly 42 million people in danger as federal government shutdown continues and Snap funding to end 1 November

• US politics – follow live

Two decades ago, Sara Carlson, then a mother of three, was newly single because of a traumatic event, and the US’s food stamp program, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), helped her feed her children with free food supplies.

“I wouldn’t have been able to afford to live,” said Carlson, 45, who lives in Rochester, Minnesota, and now works as an operations manager for a wealth-management firm and serves on the board of Channel One Regional Food Bank, which works to increase food access.

Two sweeping federal indictments have implicated big names in basketball and raised uncomfortable questions about who benefits from legalized gambling

The NBA gambling scandal is the biggest story of the year in US sports, a culmination of the years-long embrace between professional leagues and the multibillion-dollar gambling industry that has now crossed the line from synergy into scandal.

In two sweeping federal indictments unsealed in Brooklyn on Thursday, prosecutors charged more than 30 people – including the Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and former NBA player and assistant Damon Jones – with schemes that turned inside information and rigged card games into engines of profit for organized crime.

US House minority leader ends four-month standoff over backing for Democratic nominee

The House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, endorsed Zohran Mamdani for New York City mayor on Friday, ending a four-month standoff that left the Democratic nominee without the backing of one of the party’s most powerful figures until the day before early voting begins.

The announcement arrives after months of pressure from progressives in Congress and after the top Democrat has been repeatedly grilled by reporters about his reluctance to support his party’s candidate.

Buckingham Palace trying to increase pressure on prince to give up home for which he pays ‘peppercorn’ rent

Prince Andrew is reportedly in advanced talks with King Charles’s senior aides about moving out of his Royal Lodge home after a week in which his “peppercorn” rent tenancy has come under scrutiny.

Pressure has mounted on the royal family for Andrew to vacate the 30-room mansion in Windsor Great Park amid the continuing controversy over his links to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and the posthumous publication of the memoirs of the prince’s sexual assault accuser Virginia Giuffre.

Ukrainian leader joined ‘coalition of the willing’ in London to discuss how to ramp up pressure on Russia

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine wants the US to stay involved in efforts to end the war after a meeting of western allies in London that took place without Donald Trump.

The Ukrainian leader chose not to overtly lobby for the supply of US Tomahawk cruise missiles at a meeting of more than 20 mainly European leaders from the “coalition of the willing” but instead emphasised the need for the west to work together.

• Giants fined $200k over concussion protocol breach

• Daboll docked $100k and Skattebo $15k for misconduct

• League: violations created ‘perception’ of interference

The New York Giants, head coach Brian Daboll and running back Cam Skattebo have been fined for violating the NFL’s concussion protocol during an evaluation of rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart in the team’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles, the league and NFL Players Association announced Friday.

The Giants were hit with a $200,000 fine for breaching the protocol, while Daboll was fined $100,000 and Skattebo $15,000 for conduct detrimental to the league.

Some drivers say vehicles using new version of full self-driving system can travel above speed limits

The US main transportation safety regulator said on Friday it was seeking information from Tesla about a new driver assistance mode dubbed “Mad Max” that operates at higher speeds than other versions.

Some drivers on social media report that Tesla vehicles using the more aggressive version of its full self-driving (FSD) system could operate above posted speed limits.

New regulation will allow US authorities to require non-citizens to be photographed at any point of departure

The US will expand the use of facial recognition technology to track non-citizens entering and leaving the country in order to combat visa overstays and passport fraud, according to a government document published on Friday.

A new regulation will allow US border authorities to require non-citizens to be photographed at airports, seaports, land crossings and any other point of departure, expanding on an earlier pilot program. Under the regulation, set to take effect on 26 December, US authorities could require the submission of other biometrics, such as fingerprints or DNA, the document said.

Ontario premier says he plans to run ad featuring speech that sparked Trump’s ire again during World Series but campaign will end Monday

After the US suspended all trade negotiations with Canada over a 1987 speech by Ronald Reagan denouncing tariffs that appeared to spark Donald Trump’s ire, the premier of Ontario said he planned to run an ad featuring the speech again during the World Series on Friday.

Doug Ford, whose government ran the Reagan ad in US markets this week, first posted on X that the two nations were “stronger together”, while Trump added his own string of social media posts trumpeting the supposed benefits of tariffs.

Stephany Gauffeny says her husband, Miguel García-Hernández, had his ‘arms restrained to the bed and handcuffs on his feet’ as he lay dying in the hospital

• Widow of man shot at ICE facility wonders if political violence is to blame

A few hours before the Texas sun set, Stephany Gauffeny held her newborn son close to her chest as she started walking in a cemetery. The grave she stopped at had no headstone, but Gauffeny, 32, had written her husband’s name on a red ribbon.

She married Miguel García-Hernández in 2016, nearly 10 years before he was shot at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Dallas in late September.

From those using shocks to shine a light on racial injustice to others who just know sadistic clowns are scary, here are the auteurs of chills currently ripping up the rulebook

• Shock therapy: why scary movies keep evolving – and making money

• Simon handed three-month suspended sentence and fine

• Olympic medallist admitted using teammate’s bank card

The French biathlete Julia Simon was found guilty of theft and credit card fraud and handed a three-month suspended prison sentence by a French court on Friday.

Simon was accused of repeatedly using the bank card of her France teammate, Justine Braisaz-Bouchet, and that of a French team staff member to make online purchases totalling more than €2,000 (£1,371).

One half of the synth-pop duo Soft Cell best known for its No 1 single Tainted Love

When the synth-pop duo Soft Cell formed in 1977, Dave Ball, who has died in his sleep aged 66, made the perfect foil for the vocalist Marc Almond. Where Almond was mercurial and histrionic, Ball assumed the role of mysterious and reclusive mastermind. Almond would invariably be writhing in something black and skin-tight, possibly festooned with zips, while Ball might be wearing a suit and tie and attending soberly to his keyboard. Ball told the Guardian: “We were a weird couple: Marc, this gay bloke in makeup; and me, a big guy who looked like a minder.”

Ball’s death comes a few weeks after Soft Cell’s headlining performance at the Rewind Festival at Henley-on-Thames in August, where he took to the stage in a wheelchair. This was the result of a serious accident in March 2022, when he fell down the stairs at his south London home and broke his back, leading to a protracted stay in intensive care.

Democratic leader calls Canada tariffs ‘damaging’ and vows effort to overturn them; Canadian prime minister says he wants to see progress on trade negotiations

• US and Canada spar over anti-Trump tariff ad that suspended trade talks

The US secretary of state has confirmed Donald Trump’s announcement that all trade negotiations with Canada have been suspended.

Marco Rubio spoke during a visit to a civil-military coordination centre in southern Israel.

Administration will manage basic services ‘in cooperation with Arab brothers and international institutions’, says joint statement

The main Palestinian factions have said they have agreed that an independent committee of technocrats would take over the running of Gaza after Hamas said it had received “clear guarantees” from mediators that “the war has effectively ended”.

A joint statement published on the Hamas website said the groups had agreed in a meeting in Cairo to hand “over the administration of the Gaza Strip to a temporary Palestinian committee composed of independent ‘technocrats’, which will manage the affairs of life and basic services in cooperation with Arab brothers and international institutions”.