DON­ALD Trump was last night braced for ex­plo­sive devel­op­ments in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion into al­leged Rus­sian in­volve­ment in the US pres­i­den­tial elec­tion.

Spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor Robert Mueller, ap­pointed to dis­cover whether Krem­lin­backed agents swayed last year’s vote, is set to bring his first Grand Jury charges as early as to­day.

Charges were filed on Fri­day and placed un­der a seal by a fed­eral judge.

It is not known who will be in­dicted, but it could be Mr Trump’s for­mer cam­paign man­ager Paul Manafort or ex­na­tional se­cu­rity ad­viser Michael Flynn.

In a visit to the Demil­i­ta­rized Zone that sep­a­rates the two Koreas, U.S. De­fense Sec­re­tary James Mat­tis on Fri­day ac­cused North Korea of build­ing a nu­clear ar­se­nal to “threaten oth­ers with catas­tro­phe,” the Yon­hap news agency re­ported.

Mat­tis pledged sol­i­dar­ity with South Korea, say­ing that Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s ad­min­is­tra­tion wants to avoid war if pos­si­ble and re­mains com­mit­ted to forc­ing North Korea to dis­arm.

EQUINE su­per­star Winx etched her name into rac­ing his­tory and thrilled a ca­pac­ity Moonee Val­ley crowd with her third straight Cox Plate win on Satur­day.

The Chris Waller­trained mare, un­der the urg­ing of her jockey, Hugh Bow­man, held out a spir­ited fin­ish from for­mer Kiwi gal­loper Hu­mi­dor to equal Kingston Town’s race record of three straight wins in the $A3 mil­lion weight­for­age event over 2040m.

Hu­mi­dor and rider Blake Shinn al­most pulled off one of the great­est up­sets in rac­ing his­tory as they — for a few sec­onds — looked to be is­su­ing a win­ning run after get­ting clear air.

Hu­mi­dor and rider Blake Shinn al­most pulled off one of the great­est up­sets in rac­ing his­tory as they — for a few sec­onds — looked to be is­su­ing a win­ning run after get­ting clear air.

New Delhi: She is 34 years of age, a five-time box­ing world champion, the first In­dian boxer to win an Olympic medal and now a Ra­jya Sabha MP as well but you just can’t keep MC Mary Kom away from the box­ing ring. One of the leg­ends of her sport, ‘Mag­nif­i­cent Mary’ is back in her 48kg weight cat­e­gory and ready to com­pete in the Asian Cham­pi­onships in Viet­nam for the sixth time in her ca­reer.

The US dol­lar is hard to shift as the in­cum­bent cur­rency in world trade de­spite the mas­sive growth of im­ports and ex­ports to China, a con­fer­ence in Auck­land has heard.

AUS­TRALIA’s bench­mark share in­dex is al­most 14 per cent be­low the record high it hit 10 years ago this week.

The ASX 200 closed on Fri­day at 5903.1 points, al­most 950 points be­low the record 6851.5 points it cracked on Novem­ber 1, 2007.

The broader All Or­di­nar­ies in­dex is trad­ing at 13 per cent be­low the 6873.2 point record notched up a decade ago.

Strong gains on Wall Street on Fri­day night should give the local bourse a solid start to­day.

NEW DELHI, Oct 29, (AP): In­dia on Sun­day shipped its first con­sign­ment of wheat to Afghanistan by sea through Iran’s strate­gic Chah­ba­har Port, launch­ing a trade route by­pass­ing long­time ri­val Pak­istan.

The ship­ment, an In­dian gift for Afghanistan, was sent from the western sea­port of Kandla. It will be taken by trucks to Afghanistan from the Ira­nian port.

The new trade route fol­lows an air freight cor­ri­dor in­tro­duced be­tween In­dia and Afghanistan in June last year to pro­vide greater access for Afghan goods to the In­dian mar­ket.

IT’S the top-of-the-ta­ble clash that pits the reign­ing cham­pi­ons against the A-League’s sur­prise pace­set­ters.

But if Syd­ney FC need any fur­ther mo­ti­va­tion to win at Mel­bourne City on Fri­day night — be­yond step­ping past City into first place — three points would al­low the Sky Blues to equal the best ever start by a reign­ing cham­pion in the A-League.

With 10 points from four games, Syd­ney al­ready have the best start since Bris­bane Roar ac­cu­mu­lated four straight wins to open their ti­tle de­fence in sea­son 2011-12. But Roar drew their fifth game of that sea­son, and Syd­ney would equal the haul of 13 points from five games by win­ning on Fri­day.

HOUS­TON — A per­fect fit in their place, the Hous­ton Astros are half­way home.

Ge­orge Springer and the Astros broke out the bats early this time to keep up their un­beaten Oc­to­ber run at spir­ited Minute Maid Park, beat­ing the Los An­ge­les Dodgers 5-3 Fri­day night for a 2-1 World Series lead.

“We’re very com­fort­able here,” Astros man­ager A.J. Hinch said.

The NBA has for­mally granted the Celtics an $8.4 mil­lion dis­abled-player ex­cep­tion for Gor­don Hay­ward, who suf­fered a dis­lo­cated left an­kle and frac­tured tibia in the opener and is lost for the sea­son.

As first re­ported by The Ver­ti­cal, the ex­cep­tion is the largest ever awarded by the league and just the 39th granted since 1995. Only 10 of those have been used.

With an open ros­ter spot, the Celtics can sign, claim or trade for a player on the last year of his con­tract.

The Dolomites — the dra­matic moun­tains along Italy’s north­east bor­der — of­fer not only some of Europe’s most scenic alpine ex­pe­ri­ences but a chance to en­counter an in­trigu­ing min­gling of cul­tures. These Alps be­long to the longAus­trian, now-Ital­ian re­gion of South Tirol, an area that for cen­turies has been at one of Europe’s main cross­roads, and a mix­ing bowl for Ger­manic and Ital­ian cul­tures. The val­ley hub of the re­gion, Bolzano (or “Bozen” to its Ger­manspeak­ing res­i­dents), is a fun gate­way to this fas­ci­nat­ing cor­ner of Europe.