Some late news about an ascendant German city state (9)
I believe the answer is:
tennessee
'state' is the definition.
(I know that Tennessee is a American state)
'some late news about an ascendant german city' is the wordplay.
'some late news' becomes 'tene' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'about' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'an ascendant' is a reversal indicator (in a down clue, going upwards).
'german city' becomes 'essen' (city in Germany).
'essen' reversed gives 'nesse'.
'tene' placed around 'nesse' is 'TENNESSEE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for tennessee that I've seen before include "Williams, say" , "US state, capital Nashville" , "Nashville's state" , "16th US state" , "... Williams, and southeastern US state" .)