LONDON (AP) — West Ham fired coach Nuno Espírito Santo on Tuesday, just 13 games into its second-tier campaign to win promotion back to the Premier League.
The 2023 Conference League winner, which was relegated from the Premier League last season, sits eighth in the 24-team Championship after losing back-to-back home games against Southampton and West Bromwich Albion.
“Following a thorough review of the start to the EFL Championship season, the board of directors believe that a change is necessary at this time in order to ensure that the club’s objectives and expectations remain on track,” West Ham said in a statement.
Club great Mark Noble is among three coaches put in charge of the first team ahead of a game Wednesday at Cardiff.
Nuno lasted 13 months after replacing Graham Potter at a club that was once renowned for loyalty to managers but has now fired three head coaches since Conference League winner David Moyes left in 2024.
Nuno previously coached Wolverhampton, Tottenham and Nottingham Forest in the Premier League, Porto and Rio Ave in his native Portugal, plus Valencia and Saudi club Al-Ittihad.
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FILE - West Ham's head coach Nuno Espírito Santo reacts during the Premier League soccer match between West Ham and Arsenal in London, May 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Ian Walton, File)
Democratic U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar faces Republican state House speaker Lisa Demuth in Tuesday's election for Minnesota governor, a race shaped by a widespread fraud scandal.
The winner will replace outgoing Gov. Tim Walz, Democrats' most recent nominee for vice president, who ended his bid for a third term after the fraud investigation into stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from state-run social services programs exploded into a national embarrassment.
Klobuchar is well known after two decades in the Senate, has won four statewide elections by double-digit margins, faced no serious opposition in the Democratic primary and raised more than four times as much money as Demuth — factors that make her the front-runner in a state that hasn't elected a Republican to statewide office since 2006.
But Republicans think sustained attention to the fraud scandal, which has angered many Minnesotans, gives Demuth a path to end their party's losing streak.
The winner will be Minnesota's first female governor. Demuth would also be the state's first Black governor and potentially the first Black female governor in the country. Keisha Lance Bottoms, another Black woman, is running for Georgia governor.
Dozens of people have been convicted of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from state-run social services programs meant to provide food, shelter, healthcare and childcare to people in need.
Charges worked their way through the court system for years with little notice outside Minnesota until late last year, when a right-wing influencer's videos went viral and drew the attention of President Donald Trump. The president trained his ire on the state government and Minnesota's community of Somali refugees.
Under intense scrutiny, Walz dropped his reelection campaign less than four months after announcing it, and Democrats quickly coalesced around Klobuchar.
The president last winter used the scandal as justification for a violent crackdown on immigrants in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metro area, galvanizing the liberal opposition to him.
Klobuchar pledged to thoroughly audit state government and invest in new technology to catch and prevent fraud. Pointing to her pre-Senate career as Hennepin County's head prosecutor, she says she will ensure people breaking the law are convicted.
Demuth urged Minnesotans long accustomed to voting Democratic to give the Republican Party a try, saying the fraud scandal shows the status quo isn't working.
Aside from tackling fraud, Klobuchar focused on addressing rising costs. She called for reducing barriers to homebuilding, improving school test scores and reducing screen time in schools.
She ran for president in 2020 before stepping aside to endorse Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination. She has repeatedly told interviewers that she won't run in 2028, when Democrats are expected to have a crowded primary field.
Demuth is the top Republican in state government. First elected in 2018 to represent a rural district outside St. Cloud, she became House speaker under a power-sharing deal after the 2024 elections left the chamber evenly split between the parties.
She has pledged to fight violent crime, highlighting in particular acts of violence committed by Somalis, and to improve education.
Democrats have tied her to Trump, noting she sought his endorsement in the Republican primary before he backed MyPillow founder Mike Lindell.
Through mid-October, Klobuchar had raised more than $15.5 million for her campaign, a commanding advantage over Demuth's $3.6 million, according to campaign finance records. Without a serious Democratic challenger, Klobuchar was able to hoard cash ahead of the August primary while Demuth was focused on winning in a crowded Republican field.
This combination of photos shows gubernatorial candidate, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, left, D-Minn., taken Friday, Oct. 9, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn., and Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, right, candidate for Minnesota governor, taken Monday, Aug. 31, 2026, in Falcon Heights, Minn. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt, File)
