The widely followed murder trial of Lindsay Clancy ended this afternoon in a mistrial, after the Massachusetts jury failed to reach a unanimous agreement on whether she should be held criminally responsible for killing her three young children. Just one of the 12 jurors appeared to be holding out from an acquittal.

The result, after a five-week trial and roughly 38 hours of deliberations, means that Clancy has not been convicted or acquitted. She is expected to remain institutionalized at Tewksbury State Hospital while prosecutors consider whether to take the case to trial again.

Clancy admits that she strangled her children — Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 8 months — in the basement of their home in 2023, while her husband was running errands. But the jury in Plymouth, Mass., was asked to assess whether she had the mental capacity to be charged with murder. Her lawyers argued that she was in the throes of postpartum psychosis. Here’s what to know about the case.

The trial has divided Americans. For many, her case is evidence that the U.S. neglects new mothers and fails to properly care for their mental health. On some days of the trial, hundreds of women showed up outside the courtroom, wearing pink shirts to signal their support for Clancy. Others were outraged that the killing of three innocent children could be treated as anything other than murder.

A more confident Iran emerges after six months of war

Recent U.S. intelligence reports have assessed that Iran has grown more confident in its ability to attack targets in the Middle East and appears determined to continue the conflict for months to frustrate the U.S.

The assessments also suggest that Iran’s hard-line government might be contemplating a significant escalation. The reports also indicate that any agreement to fully end the war will be hard to reach, in part because Iran is aware that drawing out the conflict could cause President Trump more political pain.

In other Trump administration news:

Today’s jobs report was stronger than expected

Employers added 162,000 jobs last month across nearly every major industry, according to a new report from the Labor Department. The unemployment rate also held steady at 4.1 percent. And job gains for June and July were revised upward by 55,000. Together, the results suggest that the job market remains robust, despite elevated inflation.

Wage growth, however, continued to cool in August. Growth in average hourly earnings fell to 3.1 percent over the past year, lower than the inflation rate.

In other economic news: Trump threatened to halt a broad swath of U.S. trade unless the Fed slashed interest rates.

Regulators scrutinize steering-wheel-free cars

Tesla announced this week that it had begun offering paid rides in a fleet of shiny gold cars without brake pedals or steering wheels. The vehicles, called Cybercabs, are designed to drive without any direct human intervention.

However, on the same day the cars were rolled out, federal regulators opened an investigation into whether the model was compliant with safety regulations, which require cars to have brakes and steering wheels.

More top news

The early origins of insects are shrouded in mystery, but a fossil stored in the collections of the San Diego Natural History Museum since 1985 could be a breakthrough. For starters: They seem to have had way more legs.

Is Texas the South? A hit song strikes a nerve.

Ella Langley’s twangy single “Choosin’ Texas” just may be the song of the summer. It has spent 20 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, a record for a non-holiday song. And everybody seems to be singing along.

The song’s popularity is the latest sign that Southern culture is spreading far beyond the region, with the Lone Star State front and center. But not everyone agrees that Texas is actually part of the South. My colleagues who live in and report on the region explain the debate.

The unlikely return of ‘Practical Magic’

Back in 1998, before their Oscar glory, Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman starred in the film “Practical Magic” as the witchy Owens sisters, whose family is afflicted by a curse that kills any man they love. The movie was ridiculed by critics, and Bullock figured no one would ever want a sequel.

But in the 28 years since, the film has become a Halloween classic, and “Practical Magic 2” is about to arrive in theaters. We talked to the stars of the new film, in which Bullock and Kidman are joined by Joey King and Maisie Williams, about the return of the Owens family. “We made the sequel happen,” Bullock said. “We pushed that boulder uphill.” Read the interview.

A battle for the best meat pie

Australians love their meat pies. They consume some 270 million each year — before winter business meetings and after summer beach trips. That’s why the stakes are high when, once a year, a team of judges determines which pastry-and-filling deserves to stand above the rest.

It’s called the Official Great Aussie Meat Pie Competition, and it’s nothing short of an endurance test for the judging panel. For four days, each judge prods, sniffs and chomps down on as many as 60 pies a day. We talked to this year’s winner.

Have a savory weekend.

Thanks for reading. We’ll be off on Monday for Labor Day. I’ll be back on Tuesday — Matthew

Keith Bedford was our photo editor.

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