"When I became president, I took an oath to support and defend the constitution of the United States. The only assurance I can give you is that the federal constitution will be upheld by me by every legal means at my command.& & Telegram from US president Dwight D Eisenhower to Arkansas governor Orval E Faubus, September 5, 1957.

A draft Trump administration executive order circulating among US diplomats proposes a radical reduction to and restructuring of the State Department.

Fifteen years after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded off the Gulf Coast, killing 11 and sending 134 million gallons (507.2 million litres) of crude gushing into the ocean, the effects of the US&s worst offshore oil spill are still being felt.

The Supreme Court acted &literally in the middle of the night& and without sufficient explanation in blocking the Trump administration from deporting any Venezuelans held in northern Texas under an 18th-century wartime law, Justice Samuel Alito wrote in a sharp dissent that castigated the seven-member majority.