A city council committee will hear public testimony on a proposal to designate Kansas City as a sanctuary city for transgender people seeking gender-affirming care

Maksym Vechirko, a truck driver from Sacramento, California, was killed by a drunk driver while he was checking his tires on Interstate highway

Washington has moved up to No. 5 in The Associated Press college football poll, the Huskies' best ranking in six years, after a thrilling victory against Oregon

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President Vladimir Putin recruited a former aide of late Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin to oversee mercenary fighter units in Ukraine. The Russian president met Andrei Troshev, who is known by his nom de guerre "Sedoi" or "grey hair", along with deputy defence minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov on Thursday night, the Kremlin said in a statement. Mr Putin reportedly said that they had spoken about how "volunteer units that can perform various combat tasks, above all, of course, in the zone of the special military operation". "You yourself have been fighting in such a unit for more than a year," the president said. "You know what it is, how it is done, you know about the issues that need to be resolved in advance so that the combat work goes in the best and most successful way." The meeting appeared to be the Kremlin's attempt to show that Mr Putin had regained control over the mercenary group since Prigozhin's death in a plane crash in August following a failed mutiny against Moscow. Prigozhin had claimed that the mutiny, which was aborted before reaching Moscow, was not aimed at toppling Mr Putin but at settling scores with defence minister Sergei Shoigu and chief of the general staff Valery Gerasimov. The president in recent months ordered the Wagner mercenaries to sign an oath of allegiance to the Russian state – a step Prigozhin had opposed. Mr Troshev “betrayed” Prigozhin's short-lived mutiny against Moscow after earning Mr Putin’s favour by transferring inside information to the Russian defence ministry, investigative outlet Gulagu.net claimed in July. It is believed that Wagner will now be overseen by Mr Troshev and M Yrevkurov, who have travelled to several countries in recent months where the mercenaries worked. Mr Troshev was born in Leningrad – the Soviet-era name for Mr Putin's home town St Petersburg – and has earlier been pictured with the president. He fought in Afghanistan during the Soviet Union's decade-long war. After the fall of the Soviet Union, he served in the North Caucasus with the Russian army and then in SOBR, a quick reaction special forces unit of the Russian interior ministry. He was a commander in the unit. For his service in Afghanistan, Mr Troshev was awarded the military decoration Order of the Red Star twice. He was awarded Russia's highest medal – Hero of Russia – in 2016 for the storming of Palmyra in Syria against Islamic State militants. Several hundred fighters of the Wagner group have returned to the battlefield in Ukraine to fight for Russia, Kyiv claimed. “We have recorded the presence of a maximum of several hundred fighters of the former Wagner PMC (private military company),” spokesperson for the eastern military command Serhiy Cherevatyi said. These Wagner fighters were scattered in different places and were not part of a single unit, and had no significant impact, he said. “They do not constitute any integral, systematic, organised force,” the spokesperson said. “As they say – game over. These are pathetic remnants, nothing good awaits them here.” Read More Ukraine war - live: Kyiv ‘strikes power substation in Russia’ as Putin meets ‘Grey Hair’ commander Ukraine says hundreds of Wagner fighters back on battlefield months after failed coup A month after Prigozhin’s suspicious death, the Kremlin is silent on his plane crash and legacy The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary

Families affected by the Harvard morgue manager who allegedly stole, sold and shipped human remains that were donated to the university for medical research have filed a class action lawsuit against the manager along with the university's president and fellows, according to a court filing.

A deadly blast at a hospital in Gaza hours before President Joe Biden was set to leave the White House for the Middle East set off a furious scramble inside his administration as the president's advisers tried to ascertain who was responsible as street protests against Israel started raging across the Arab world.

Shares are mostly lower in Asia as optimism over a Wall Street rally was countered by worries about the Chinese economy

Officials say an Air India flight from New Delhi to San Francisco has landed in Russia after it developed an engine problem

Liberal groups are trying to end Donald Trump's attempt to return to the White House by arguing that he is no longer eligible to be president after trying to overturn the 2020 election results

Russia said it was evacuating hundreds of children from villages due to intensifying shelling in the border region of Belgorod, where the situation was deemed...

Coco Gauff ended Caroline Wozniacki's fairytale US Open comeback to line up a potential quarter-final blockbuster with Iga Swiatek, while Novak Djokovic hoped for...