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Oct 08, 2026
WASHINGTON (AP) — The firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be livestreamed, the Pentagon said Thursday, a stunning revelation about plans for the first military execution in more than 65 years after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had described it as being "public."
The Army announced this week that the execution would take place at Fort Hood on Dec. 3 after Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 others in a shooting at the military base in 2009.
Hegseth, speaking to the conservative TV outlet Real America's Voice News on Wednesday, said, "We'll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public." Officials in the Pentagon clarified Thursday that the execution would be livestreamed and that more details would follow.
The revelation from Hegseth about the public nature of an execution — let alone one as violent as a firing squad — has raised further questions about how the death penalty is carried out in the United States, especially after the botched lethal injection of Christa Pike in Tennessee.
Experts offer mixed reactions on the plan
Hasan could choose to resist execution and file a habeas petition in civilian court, which is a legal request for a court to review the legality of someone's detention, and could significantly delay the execution, experts on military law said.
"It frankly might outlast the current
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Oct 08, 2026
Eric Deters, a former Kentucky congressional candidate and longtime ally of President Trump, has emerged in the national spotlight after an explosive report revealed his alleged text exchanges with Kimberly Guilfoyle, U.S. ambassador to Greece, over her credit card debt.
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Guilfoyle, ex-wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and the former fiancé of Donald Trump Jr., allegedly pressed Deters to pay her $100,000 American Express balance without leaving a paper trail and, in exchange, promised to help him reach senior administration officials.
Deters, 63, is a former attorney, businessman and conservative radio host who has spent years building connections within Trump's inner circle. He declined to make the payment and has since publicly accused Guilfoyle of offering political access in exchange for large sums of money.
Guilfoyle's $100,000 request
Guilfoyle's dealings with Deters began drawing attention after the Journal obtained hundreds of text messages, emails and letters, detailing their relationship in a bombshell report.
According to the outlet, Guilfoyle told Deters she needed the balance to be paid ahead of her July 9, 2025, confirmation hearing before the Senate.
"Honey please I need you to get this done for me today," she wrote in one exchange on the messaging app Signal, which
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Oct 08, 2026
Delegations from the U.S. and Iran entered negotiations in June aimed at a war-ending deal based on a memorandum of understanding signed by both countries.
Those talks broke down as the U.S. and Iran continued to exchange strikes, with the strategic Strait of Hormuz as the primary flashpoint. Trump then said in August that the U.S. would launch a "crushing economic operation" to force Tehran into submission.
President Donald Trump said the U.S. is having "productive discussions" with Iran on Thursday, saying the U.S. will not be attacking Iran before the midterm elections.
Oct 6, 2:49 PM
A military spokesperson for the Saudi-backed Yemeni Armed Forces claimed it has gained back control of the key area surrounding Red Sea waterway and the Bab Al Mandab.
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Oct 08, 2026
Delegations from the U.S. and Iran entered negotiations in June aimed at a war-ending deal based on a memorandum of understanding signed by both countries.
Those talks broke down as the U.S. and Iran continued to exchange strikes, with the strategic Strait of Hormuz as the primary flashpoint. Trump then said in August that the U.S. would launch a "crushing economic operation" to force Tehran into submission.
President Donald Trump said the U.S. is having "productive discussions" with Iran on Thursday, saying the U.S. will not be attacking Iran before the midterm elections.
Oct 6, 2:49 PM
A military spokesperson for the Saudi-backed Yemeni Armed Forces claimed it has gained back control of the key area surrounding Red Sea waterway and the Bab Al Mandab.
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Oct 08, 2026
(In paragraph 17, corrects quote attribution to defense lawyer Mark Donnelly, not US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein)
By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK, Oct 8 (Reuters) - Ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores both were hit with an additional US criminal charge on Thursday stemming from accusations ?they tortured political opponents and American citizens to retain their grip on power in the South American country.
Separately, US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who is overseeing ?the case, denied a request by Flores to be released from jail ahead of trial due to health reasons.
Maduro and Flores were charged with an additional count of conspiracy to commit torture in addition ?to the drug trafficking charges they previously faced, according to a superseding indictment filed in Manhattan federal court. Maduro and Flores would face a mandatory-minimum 50 years in prison if convicted.
Flores, 69, and Maduro, 63, were captured by the US military on January 3 in their Caracas home and brought to New York to face the drug charges. Venezuela has since boosted cooperation with the US under the leadership of Maduro's former Vice President Delcy Rodriguez.
Relations between the United States and oil-rich Venezuela were tense during the socialist Maduro's 13 years in power. US ?officials and human rights groups have long accused Venezuelan officials ?of torturing detainees, but Thursday's indictment marked the first time Maduro faced criminal charges over the allegations.
In one instance, prosecutors said Maduro in 2013 ordered the arrest of a Venezuelan military officer he suspected of planning a coup.
Members of Venezuela's military counterintelligence directorate then ?interrogated the officer while shocking the individual with a live electric wire around 20 times and hung the individual by the hands and feet for several minutes at a time, prosecutors said.
In 20
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Oct 08, 2026
While Christa Pike didn't act alone in the crime that landed her on death row, the two others involved in the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer met less severe punishments.
Pike, Tadaryl Shipp and Shadolla Peterson were all students at Jobs Corps, a training program in Knoxville, Tennessee, when they lured Slemmer, a classmate, into the woods on Jan. 12, 1995.
There, Pike and Shipp, a couple at the time, tortured Slemmer and bludgeoned her to death. They were both later convicted of the crime, while Peterson pled guilty and walked away with probation, according to court records.
The grisly crime has garnered renewed interest after Pike's botched execution by lethal injection on Sept. 30. She was transported to a hospital and has since regained consciousness and is speaking, her attorney said on Oct. 7.
Here's what to know about the other assailants in the case that's capturing national attention.
Christa Pike accomplice Tadaryl Shipp serving life sentence
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Oct 08, 2026
The Trump administration has halted the ability of tech giants Microsoft and Adobe to sponsor H-1B visa workers seeking green cards, Vice President JD Vance announced Thursday.
Vance made the comments during a press conference on visa fraud, during which he argued Microsoft is discriminating against Americans by prioritizing foreign workers. Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling announced later at the event that his department is also suspending Adobe from the program.
"Our message to Microsoft is: You're a great American company, but you've got to hire great American workers," Vance, who leads the administration's anti-fraud task force, said at the press conference.
The announcement is the result of an administrationwide effort to crack down on alleged abuse of work visa systems. Vance on Thursday accused tech giant Microsoft of fraud, citing the company's decision to eliminate thousands of workers earlier this year.
U.S. tech companies often rely on H-1B visas to hire foreign-born workers with specialized technical skills.
"For every worker that Microsoft laid off, they replaced that worker with one-and-a-half foreign indentured servants," Vance said.
Spokespeople for Microsoft and Adobe did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This article originally appeared on Politico at https://www.politico.com/news/2026/10/08/vance-microsoft-adobe-h-1-b-green-cards-01111603
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Oct 08, 2026
What Causes Sleep Paralysis? PonyWang - Getty ImagesIt's terrifying to wake up and feel like you can't move, but sleep paralysis is more common than you might think. Up to 30% of people experience this at some point, while people with panic disorder have an even greater risk. But what causes sleep paralysis? The answer isn't always clear.
Meet the experts: James McGuirk, M.D., assistant professor in the Division of Sleep Medicine at Vanderbilt Health; Christopher Winter, M.D., a sleep medicine specialist, neurologist, and author of The Sleep Solution: Why Your Sleep Is Broken and How to Fix It; Thea Gallagher, Psy.D., clinical associate professor at NYU Langone Health and co-host of the Mind in View podcast
Certain factors can up your risk of developing sleep paralysis, but doctors don't always know why someone will experience it in any given moment. Making things even more complicated is that some people may experience sleep paralysis once and then never again, while others may have it repeatedly.
"Sleep paralysis" isn't a term everyone is familiar with, and it can look slightly different from person to person. And l
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Oct 08, 2026
By Simon Johnson and Johan Ahlander
STOCKHOLM, Oct 8 (Reuters) - Canadian poet and writer Anne Carson won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature "for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature", the Swedish Academy said on Thursday.
"She was very taken by surprise," said Ingrid ?Carlberg, permanent secretary of the academy, which awards the prize worth 12 million Swedish crowns ($1.2 million).
"We didn't have so much time to speak, and all she had time to tell ?me was that she is for the moment in Iceland, where she's listening to the wind."
Carson's work often blends verse, prose, dialogue and translation in a genre-defying mix. Born in Toronto, the 76-year-old has also held Icelandic citizenship since 2022 and ?has spent considerable time on the Arctic island in recent years.
She is widely known for her translations of classical Greek literature, which heavily influences her work that ranges from opera libretti to literary criticism and verse novels such as "Autobiography of Red" from 1998.
"Almost all her literary production has centred upon the intersection between the philologist's obsession with words and the poet's desire for new meaning," the Academy said.
"She has herself identified the etymology of words as the starting point for all her work. Her translations from Classical Greek may be regarded as independent works in their own right."
Her style is exemplified in "Norma Jeane Baker of Troy" ?from 2019, a performance piece which mixes the stories of Helen ?of Troy in Euripides' play "Helen" and Marilyn Monroe.
The Academy also praised her ability to explore "the possibilities of writing, a process by which the literary sketch has become of particular value to her".
"Bearing witness to this is Float (2016), a work consisting of 22 chapbooks on different subjects, capa
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Oct 08, 2026
The Cornell University campus on the night of October 6, 2026. Student leaders held a town hall to discuss fallout from the Jane Doe sexual assault case. - Surya Vaidy/CNN
One month ago, the woman now known to America as Cornell's Jane Doe was living in New York City among thousands of other aspirational twentysomethings, attempting to break into the hotel industry and build a new life, according to her attorney, Thomas Giuffra.
But that plan has been derailed since she filed a lawsuit against Cornell University and others, alleging she was raped at a frat house in 2024.
Instead, Giuffra said, Doe spent Wednesday taping up paper to obscure the windows of her parents' home out of fear that a gunman could attack her, and reeling from a swatting episode that he said prompted police to swarm their home Tuesday night with weapons drawn.
Doe is increasingly scared for her own safety, Giuffra said in a phone interview with CNN on Wednesday as he detailed his client's deteriorating mental state after an escalating series of violent threats.
Officers pointed weapons at Jane Doe's boyfriend, her brother and her father after receiving a bogus tip that "someone was killing people in the house" on Tuesday evening, he said.
Deat
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Oct 08, 2026
Police said the buses were hit with a glide bomb (Handout)Ukraine on Thursday accused Russia of deliberately targeting civilians after 30 people were killed when two buses were blown up in the frontline city of Kramatorsk, in one of the deadliest single attacks for weeks.
Photos posted by local authorities showed the burnt-out metal shell of the vehicles, with the blurred-out images of bodies and debris strewn across the road.
Police said the buses were hit with a glide bomb.
The strikes come just a day after five children were among 22 killed when a Russian missile struck a five-storey apartment block in Pryluky, in the northern Chernigiv region.
"The Russians are deliberately targeting civilians," Donetsk Governor Vadym Filashkin said, accusing Moscow of flouting "every conceivable rule of warfare and norm of international humanitarian law".
Kramatorsk City Council called it "yet another horrific crime committed by the Russian army against the civilian population".
"Once again, the Russians have struck a location where there are absolutely no military targets," it added.
There has been mounting concern about the increase in civilian casualties in the conflict, as both sides step up long-range attacks beyond their borders.
Since Russia first invaded in 2022, Ukraine has accused its forces of deliberately attacking and killing civilians.
The United Nations has verified more than 17,000 civilian deaths throughout the war, but says the real number is considerably higher.
Last week, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had sanctioned massive attacks on civilian areas.
The Kremlin has denied the claim.
- Security worsened -
Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, has come under increasin
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Oct 08, 2026
Christa Pike is "up and walking" in the hospital after surviving last week's failed attempt to execute her in Tennessee, a member of her legal team said Thursday.
Lawyer Stephen Ferrell told the BBC that he had learned she was moving around her hospital room, although he had not spoken to her.
"What's been described to me is that physically there's quite a bit going on, that her arms are very injured and she's not able to use them very much," he said. "She is up and walking for the first time today, but just around the room, not very far."
Ferrell described her mental state as "kind of good and bad," adding, "Good that she is fairly with it, but she's also somewhat foggy. She can lose her train of thought really easily and forgets where she's going."
He said he assumed Pike's situation would "keep improving," but added that "there could be some permanent damage. We don't know that yet."
Pike's attorneys said Wednesday that she was feeling "angry and confused" after waking up in the hospital, and that the failed execution attempt left her with severe physical health challenges that put her on a "long road to recovery."
Pike had been unconscious and in critical condition in the days after two doses of pentobarbital failed to end her life on Sept. 30, they sa
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Oct 08, 2026
The USS Abraham Lincoln near the city of Pattaya in Thailand on 6 September 2026. Photograph: Chanakarn Laosarakham/AFP/Getty Images
The USS Abraham Lincoln, the US aircraft carrier that has been deployed for nearly a year and has spent months supporting US military operations against Iran, is scheduled to dock in San Diego on Thursday afternoon.
It marks the end of a deployment that has been described as "one of the most operationally intense and consequential of the modern era" and that became marked by a record-stretch at sea, repeated deployment extensions, and reports of supply shortages, and deteriorating morale and mental health among some crew members.
The Lincoln left San Diego last November, initially bound for the Pacific. But it was redirected to the Middle East after the US and Israel launched their war with Iran in late February. The carrier remained there until late August, when it was relieved by the USS George Washington and began its journey home.
Earlier in August, the Lincoln's deployment made headlines and faced scrutiny as reports began surfacing about poor living conditions aboard the ship, including
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Oct 08, 2026
Students walk through the University of Texas campus on Aug. 24, 2026. —Jay Janner—The Austin American-Statesman/Getty ImagesThe Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday proposed a rule that would charge schools $70,000 per international student seeking to work in the U.S. through a program known as Optional Practical Training. It marks the Trump Administration's latest attempt to curb foreign enrollment.
The proposal, published Thursday in the Federal Register and open for comment until Nov. 9, aims to crack down on OPT—a temporary employment authorization that lets students work in jobs related to their field of study and that DHS has claimed has "ballooned into an uncontrolled guest worker pipeline" and become a "magnet for fraud."
Under the current system, students pay about $500 to apply and are generally permitted to work in the U.S. for up to a year during or after their study, while those in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields may get work period extensions.
Under the proposal, schools would have to pay $70,000 for a student's initial participation—and another $30,000 for each additional program participation—though DHS said it recognizes schools "may pass the financial obligation of this proposed fee" to students or employers. Collected fees would be
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Oct 08, 2026
Republican efforts to reduce national gas prices in the weeks before Election Day were derailed in the Senate by infighting among GOP lawmakers and members of the administration who could not agree on how to ease consumers' pain at the pump.
The divisions within the Senate Republican conference over how to lower gas and diesel prices — even if temporarily — were driven primarily by geographic differences.
Senators from oil-refining states shot down proposals from farm-state senators to ban the export of diesel or to loosen restrictions on the sale of E15 gasoline with higher ethanol content.
"You're talking about regional politics, and it gets bogged down in the politics of energy, and the fiefdoms around it," said Ron Bonjean, a GOP strategist and former Senate leadership aide.
There were divisions that went beyond geography, too.
Fiscal hawks torpedoed proposals to suspend the gas tax, even though their colleagues argued that doing so for a short period of time to bolster Republican candidates would have little real impact on the highway trust fund.
And lawmakers had less flexibility on some possible actions because of the depletion of the nation's strategic petroleum reserve by big drawdowns to stabilize market prices during the Iran war.
The biggest problem, however, was that Republican senators didn't see any proposal as likely to have a significant impact on prices before Nov. 3, when voters will decide which party controls Congress next year.
"It is almost impossible to federally reduce gasoline prices for consumers because the levers of power that can be used have very lit
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Oct 08, 2026
WASHINGTON - In November, does the blue wave become a tsunami?
Watch these spaces.
Five keys are shaping monster midterms that are poised to revive Democrats' political power in Washington and reinforce it across the country. But the advantage of Republican money and the weakness of the Democratic Party brand could also mean an Election Night with more modest gains, a GOP catastrophe averted.
In a wave election, Democrats regain control of the House of Representatives. In a tsunami, they take the Senate, too.
The Texas Senate race between Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico and a handful of tight Texas House races will show how many Hispanic voters are abandoning their brief alliance with the GOP. The Senate race in Michigan between Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers will test whether swing-state voters are willing to support the Democrats' rising voices on the left.
And President Donald Trump's cross-country tour of some of the nation's most reliably Republican states, from Alabama to Oklahoma, will demonstrate whether he can still deliver. His voters have reshaped the GOP and twice elected him to the White House, but he's no longer on the ballot - not to mention that his approval ratings have sunk to the lowest level of any modern president as midterms approach.
Even Kansas, which hasn't elected a Democratic senator since 1932,
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Oct 08, 2026
CORONADO, Calif. (AP) — The USS Abraham Lincoln returned home to San Diego Bay Thursday with sailors jumping up and down and waving excitedly to loved ones as the ship ended a deployment that included a record uninterrupted 265 days at sea in support of the Iran war.
Families described crying and losing sleep amid reports of the ship's deteriorating conditions and meals being rationed. Many said the sailors had sent lists of the food they were craving.
Dozens stood atop the carrier as it glided past the cityscape of downtown San Diego toward cheering families who were carrying flowers and balloons and ringing cowbells.
Cassity Garduque, 14, waved as her mom in her sailor uniform frantically waved back from the top deck. "It feels really overwhelming," she said about being reunited, adding she's glad her mom won't need to eat ramen almost every day.
The carrier drew national attention following reports of stress among the crew and poor mental health, as well as supply shortages, including food and hygiene products, during its Iran war mission.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth flew out to the Lincoln on Wednesday to give the crew the Presidential Unit Citation, the highest honor a unit can receive.
Hegseth pushed back against what he said were efforts to turn the "Lincoln into some sort of a symbol, a symbol of dysfun
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Oct 08, 2026
As the weather turns colder, it also means respiratory virus season is upon the United States.
In its annual outlook report, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it expects the 2026-27 respiratory virus season to have a similar number of peak hospitalizations from influenza, COVID-19 and RSV compared to last season.
Public health specialists told ABC News the best way for people to protect themselves against these viruses is to get vaccinated.
Expert tips for parents to prepare as flu season beginsFlu vaccine
The CDC currently recommends that people aged 6 months and older receive an annual flu vaccine.
The seasonal flu vaccine protects against three viruses predicted to circulate during flu season: Type A (H1N1) virus, Type A(H3N2) virus, and Type B/Victoria virus
There are several flu vaccines available this season, with recommendations varying by age and medical history.
Mary Conlon/AP Photo - PHOTO: A box of flu vaccines is displayed at a pharmacy in New York, Sept. 15, 2026. "Obviously, we target high-risk groups, so those would be older adults, so over the age of 50, people with chronic medical conditions, individuals who are immuno
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Oct 08, 2026
The U.S. Senate candidates in Texas could hardly be more different: James Talarico, a former seminarian turned Democratic state lawmaker who speaks in calm cadences about love and empathy, and Ken Paxton, the pugnacious Republican state attorney general who speaks about a refusal to compromise.
They share an enemy, though. They dislike social media's effects on children's mental health. Talarico, who did not respond to a request for comment, has endorsed a social media ban for kids under 16, while denouncing "predatory algorithms that divide us on an hourly, daily basis." As a legislator, he co-authored a bill targeting explicit deepfakes — digital imitations of individuals that are often made or manipulated by artificial intelligence and used for harassment on social media.
Paxton has been suing Big Tech, alleging the companies hook youth on their apps or don't restrict sensitive videos from being viewed by kids. "When elected to the U.S. Senate, he will continue his proven record of advancing policies that protect children online, strengthen parental rights, and hold Big Tech acco
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Oct 08, 2026
Democrats' eyes may be bigger than their wallets.
Democrats across a slate of deep-red states are clamoring for more cash to fight for Senate seats that suddenly seem within reach, with polling showing them competitive across a swath of normally impregnable territory from Kansas to Florida and South Carolina to Mississippi prompting a sudden bump in late-stage spending from outside groups. The party's main campaign groups have already begun spending in Texas, another state they once downplayed that's come seriously into play.
But those same groups say they don't have enough cash to protect the core battleground and also make significant investments beyond it — setting up Democrats for a series of difficult choices in the closing weeks of the midterms.
"It's very clear in the polling: If we get our message out, we're going to win. We're also not an expensive state to advertise in," said Scott Colom, the Mississippi Democratic Senate nominee. "When it comes to Mississippi, we've been ignored for far too long."
Some Democrats see a generational opportunity to win seats in red states, driven by voters' frustration with the economy that has hit rural and poorer red states particularly hard. And they're starting to play around the edges.
American Bridge PAC has pumped $2.1 million into Mississippi, where it is running ads targeting GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith. The state's population is poor and mostly rural — two groups that have bee
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Oct 08, 2026
Isaias became the first hurricane of the Atlantic season on Thursday, as it headed towards the U.S. Gulf Coast, bringing evacuation warnings and the possibility of a life-threatening storm surge along the coast.
Isaias is expected to strengthen and make landfall late Friday or early Saturday, according to the National Weather Service, which warned of damaging hurricane-force winds and a life-threatening storm surge.
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Isaias was expected to remain a strong hurricane.
It is unclear exactly where Isaias might make landfall. Current models show the center of the storm coming onshore anywhere from eastern Mississippi to the western tip of the Florida Panhandle.
The NWS said residents in portions of the Florida Panhandle, southern Alabama, southern Mississippi and parts of Mississippi should "prepare for the possibility of long-duration power outages."
The governors of Florida and Alabama declared a state of emergency for dozens of counties. Okaloosa County in Florida announced mandatory evacuations for some coastal areas. "Residents should take this storm seriously and evacuate," county government said in a news release.
"Floridians should take this time to get disaster plans in place and ensure their hurricane supply kit is stocked," Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said. He urged communities in a post on X to "make sure to execute your hurricane plan."
Emergency ma
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Oct 08, 2026
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday flatly refused to comment on a new report alleging that U.S. Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle engaged in improper and possibly illegal conduct before taking up her post.
Rubio told reporters that he would not discuss the allegations contained in a Wall Street Journal story that said Guilfoyle had asked a donor and supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump to pay a $100,000 credit card bill just before her confirmation hearing, promising him access to administration officials if he did.
He spoke before leaving Greece, where he delivered a speech calling for European countries to return to what he described as their civilizational roots.
Rubio said he was aware of The Wall Street Journal's report, which was published late Wednesday, but had no idea if it was true and he would not address it.
"You guys walk around thinking that because some source told you something and you reported it, it's the gospel. It's not the gospel. It's not the gospel for me. That's not the way we do things," he said at the foot of his plane as Guilfoyle, who was there to see him depart Greece, looked on.
At a joint news conference with the Greek foreign minister on Wednesday, Rubio said he would not address the allegations while visiting a foreign country, but added, "Suffice it to say our embassy here is doing a great job. Our ambassador has been a strong ambassador here."
The top two Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations committees have called for an investigation into Guilfoyle, but Rubio would not say if he wa
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Oct 08, 2026
Roger Clemens is not in the National Baseball Hall of Fame but he will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, President Donald Trump announced Wednesday.
Clemens introduced Trump at a rally in San Antonio on Wednesday, with Trump dropping the announcement as the former pitcher stood nearby. During the announcement, Trump said he had played golf with Clemens earlier this year, which prompted him to call MLB commissioner Rob Manfred about his Hall of Fame case:
It's worth noting the MLB commissioner has no power over who gets into the Hall of Fame. That is determined first by voters from the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA), then a committee of voters determined by the Hall of Fame itself.
Trump did successfully intervene on the part of the late Pete Rose last year, pushing Manfred to remove the league's all-time hits leader from the ineligible list. Clemens is not on that list, nor will Rose reach the Hall of Fame without a successful vote.
Trump is correct that Clemens won seven Cy Young Awards, two more than any other pitcher in history. He also won two World Series championships, 11 All-Star selections, an AL MVP award, two 20-strikeout games and two triple crowns. It
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Oct 08, 2026
Airmen from the Texas Air National Guard conduct preflight and postflight inspections on an MQ-9 Reaper aircraft at Keflavík Air Base, Iceland, in August. - Senior Airman Edgar Grimaldo/US Air Force/File
The United States military has had 81 aircraft destroyed or damaged in the war with Iran, a Congressional Research Service report released this week says.
The number includes both airplanes and helicopters as well as drones, with the MQ-9 Reaper drone - used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, close air support and combat search and rescue - accounting for more than half of the losses.
But also on the list are some of the Pentagon's most-prized assets, including an F-35A fighter jet and an E-3 Sentry, the four-engine jet with a large radar dome atop the fuselage used for target tracking and airspace management.
The total cost of the aircraft lost is between $1.9 billion and $3.3 billion, depending on the Defense Department's plans for replacements, the report said, citing figures from the Congressional Budget Office.
The total cost of the war is much higher - at least $45 billion, sources have told CNN. That figure doesn't
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Oct 08, 2026
Hurricane Isaias strengthened from a tropical storm late Wednesday night and is expected to make landfall along the U.S. Gulf Coast this weekend, threatening parts of Mississippi, Alabama and the western part of the Florida Panhandle. It is the first hurricane of the 2026 Atlantic season.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency for more than two dozen counties in his state, which directed resources to prepare for potential severe impacts from the storm, while Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey issued a similar state of emergency for 40 counties.
A hurricane warning was issued Wednesday for the northern Gulf Coast, from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, across Alabama to Florida's Bay/Gulf County line.
Isaias had maximum sustained winds of 75 mph and was located about 460 miles southwest of the mouth of the Mississippi River, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Maps show hurricane's pathForecasters said they expected Hurricane Isaias, pronounced "ees-ah-EE-ahs," to pass to the north of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula on Thursday before proceeding toward the Gulf Coast on Friday. It is forecast to make landfall along the northern Gulf Coast of the U.S. late Friday or early Saturday, the hurricane center said.
Maps show it is expected to impact parts of Florida, Alabama and Georgia, bringing moderate or substantial rainfall to stretches of the coast, as well as inland portions of the southeastern U.S., over the weekend and into next week.
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Oct 07, 2026
THE TAKEAWAY
Hurricane Isaias has formed in the Gulf, becoming the first Atlantic hurricane of the season and is forecast to make landfall along the northern Gulf Coast later this week.Isaias rapidly intensified from a tropical storm into a Category 1 hurricane, with winds increasing by 40 mph in just 6 hours between Wednesday afternoon and late Wednesday night.Heavy rain is expected to begin on Friday, with flash flooding, damaging wind gusts, storm surge and even tornadoes possible as the storm comes ashore.Landfall is currently expected sometime between late Friday and early Saturday, but uncertainty remains regarding exactly where and how strong Isaias will be at that time.Hurricane Isaias is continuing to strengthen in the Gulf after becoming the first Atlantic hurricane of the season and is forecast to make landfall along the northern Gulf Coast later this week as a dangerous Category 2 hurricane.
Isaias is expected to approach the coast by Friday, with landfall currently estimated to be sometime late Friday or early Saturday between Gulf Shores, Alabama, and Pensacola, Florida.
Hurricane Isaias statsFlorida Governor Ron DeSantis and Alabama Governor Kay Ivey have declared states of emergency ahead of the storm.
How Are Hurricanes Rated?
Meanwhile, evacuation orders have
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Oct 07, 2026
Washington — New videos obtained exclusively by CBS News show Iranian attacks on a major U.S. military base in Kuwait as the war with Iran kicked off seven months ago. American forces faced ballistic missiles, drones and what witnesses described as Iranian F-5 fighter jets.
The footage obtained by CBS News was recorded by a person stationed on the ground at Camp Buehring, and captures the moments of impact and their explosive aftermath. Damage to buildings and military equipment can also be seen in the videos.
The attacks on Camp Buehring offer a window into the strain Iranian attacks placed on American forces during the opening days of the war. CBS News has learned that soldiers defending the base ran critically low on .50-caliber ammunition as some soldiers were repositioned into the Udari Desert in Kuwait. Two soldiers were injured by lightning there in late April, according to U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter.
Contacted by CBS News, U.S. Central Command, the primary unit which oversees American military operations across the Middle East, declined to comment.
The Pentagon did not comment, but pointed back to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's comments on March 4 regarding the removal of U.S. troops from bases and the employment of defensive measures.
"As we built up offensive combat power, we moved the vast majority of American troops — over 90% of Americans that were on our bases — what we say off the X, out of the range of Iranian fire," Hegseth told reporters in March.
Camp Buehring, or CBKU, sits about 25 miles from the Iraqi border and has for more than two decades served as
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Oct 07, 2026
A Democratic congressional candidate in Arizona says she was raped over the summer while trying to repair a campaign sign.
Bernadette Greene-Placentia, who is running in the state's 8th district to try to unseat GOP Rep. Abe Hamadeh, told the Phoenix New Times, a local news outlet, that she was attacked at around 2 a.m. as she was walking toward a campaign sign in a parking lot in Sun City, north of Phoenix.
Greene-Placentia said she was attacked, subdued and then woke up to find that she was being raped by an unknown assailant.
Courtesy Bernadette Greene-Placentia campaign - PHOTO: Bernadette Greene-Placentia is seen in this undated photo provided by her campaign. What Jane Doe told Cornell hearing panel about alleged 2024 gang rapeGreene-Placentia told the news outlet she reported the assault to the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, and that she chose to tell her story because she had been talking about fighting for Arizona residents while campaigning "and I didn't feel like I could keep saying that if I weren't also fighting for women that are victims of sexual assault."
The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office confirmed to ABC News that a report was filed on Aug. 31 and that there is an ongoing investigation, but said the office could not comment further on the investigation.
In a statement to ABC News, a campaign spokesperson said the attack happened around 2 a.m. on Aug. 14.
"Bernadette made the difficult decision to speak publicly about the assault because she wants other survivors to know they are not alone," the spokesperson said. "She is grateful for the support she has received from the com
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Oct 07, 2026
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — President Donald Trump, facing protesters and a poor political climate, fought to rally Texas voters behind Senate candidate Ken Paxton on Wednesday night in a bid to stave off sweeping Democratic victories in the nation's most populous red state.
But Trump's remarks were not focused solely on Paxton.
Speaking to a packed Freeman Coliseum, Trump also pledged to award retired baseball star Roger Clemens the Presidential Medal of Freedom, restated his support for the death penalty for drug dealers and clarified recent comments in which he talked about the possibility of Iran bombing American cities as part of a recurring riff about how high fuel costs are "a small price to pay" for the war.
"You want to see problems? Let them hit San Diego, let them hit Los Angeles," Trump said. "We're not going to let that happen. We protect our cities. We protect our country."
The president's message was interrupted repeatedly by protesters, including by one who appeared to be close to the stage. In all, at least a dozen demonstrators interrupted the president. Some were led away by police.
Trump stepped away from the microphone briefly after one interruption.
"He's going back home to mom," Trump said. "But what he doesn't know is his mom voted for Trump."
Texas has become an unexpected battleground for Republicans
The Republican Party did not plan to devote so much money and manpower to Texas this midterm season.
Texas is the nation's most populous reliably Republican state, where Trump won in 2024 by almost 14 percentage points. But with Election Day less than a month away,
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Oct 07, 2026
The USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group will return to its homeport of San Diego on Thursday, concluding a 10-month deployment to the Middle East where it played a key role in the war with Iran and set a new record of 265 days in between ports of call.
In all, the ship will have spent 321 days on deployment, the second-longest since the end of the Cold War. The longest deployment was set earlier this year when the carrier USS Gerald R. Ford returned from a 326-day deployment to Europe, the Caribbean and the Middle East.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited the Lincoln on Wednesday ahead of its return home and praised the ship's crew for its resilience and dedication during the lengthy deployment.
POOL via ABC News - PHOTO: Secretary of War Pete Hegseth speaks while aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, Oct. 7, 2026. Hegseth told sailors gathered on the carrier's flight deck that he had extended their deployment twice -- in recent years typical carrier strike deployments have lasted seven months.
8 sailors attached to USS Lincoln have attempted suicide, acting Navy secretary says"I plead guilty, A., because of the incredible effectiveness that you showcased on the battlefield and the necessity. But also B., the mission required it, and C., because President Trump had full faith that you would deliver on behalf of the American people, and you did" he, added.
"What the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group did, no other carrier strike group has ever
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Oct 07, 2026
Texas has taken center stage ahead of next month's midterm elections as Democrats grow more optimistic about their chances in the state up and down the ballot.
For months, the state's highly contested Senate race has dominated midterm elections headlines, but Democrats say they are seeing opportunity in other Texas contests as well. The Democratic Governors Association and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) announced this week they each plan to give $1 million to support Democrat Gina Hinojosa in the state's gubernatorial race.
Meanwhile, leaked audio of Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton blaming the national GOP as Democrat James Talarico leads in the polls has rocked the Senate race.
Still, President Trump and Vice President Vance have traveled multiple times to the state to bolster Lone Star State Republicans in competitive contests. Trump is set to rally alongside Paxton and Republican House candidate Carlos De La Cruz in San Antonio Wednesday evening.
"Texas is clearly in play," said Brendan Steinhauser, a Texas-based GOP
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Oct 07, 2026
Michael Dell, philanthropist and founder of Dell Technologies, pushed back against critics who argue that allowing wealthy investors to donate individual company stocks to Trump Accounts could have a nefarious impact.
Under new rules that took effect last week, charities can put individual stocks into kids' accounts as a donation. Trump Accounts are tax-advantaged investment vehicles that can be used for education expenses, starting a business, or saving for retirement. They were authorized in last year's One Big Beautiful Tax bill. Previously, the money was required to be invested in low-cost index funds.
Read more: Trump Accounts expand to stock donations. What are the benefits and risks?
So far, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell is the only donor to announce a major stock contribution, pledging more than 2 million shares to benefit lower-income children ages 11 to 17 living in lower-income areas.
"It's kind of hard for me to believe that's a bad thing, right?" Dell said Wednesday in an interview with Yahoo Finance. "That these children are going to somehow be negatively influenced because they now have one share of SpaceX, but they didn't have before, right? The alternative is they didn't have it, right?"
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Oct 07, 2026
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro at the Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas, on October 15, 2021. - Federico Parra/AFP/Getty Images
Prosecutors in New York are expected to bring new charges against former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores over the alleged torture of Americans who were held in Venezuelan government custody in recent years, according to multiple people familiar with the investigation.
An announcement could come as soon as Thursday, the people said.
The new charges relate to what the US government has said was the wrongful detention of more than a dozen US citizens in Venezuelan prisons during the time Maduro led a repressive regime in Venezuela, the people briefed on the investigation said.
Investigators have also discussed charging several additional people for their alleged role in the torture of Americans, according to a source familiar with the matter.
CNN has reached out to lawyers for Maduro and Flores.
Maduro and his wife were captured in a US military raid in January from the presidential palace in Caracas. They have pleaded not guilty to narcoterrorism conspiracy and other charges and are held without bail in New York.
Flores is expected to appear at a hearing Thursday where her lawyer will ask that she be moved to house arrest ahead of trial.
Maduro's lawyer is challenging the legality of the arrest and argues the former president should have immunity since the alleged c
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Oct 07, 2026
By Jan Wolfe
WASHINGTON, Oct 7 (Reuters) - Democratic Party officials sued US President Donald Trump on Wednesday, seeking a court order blocking his administration from ?using taxpayer money to pay for election-related TV ads.
The lawsuit, filed by ?the Democratic National Committee in federal court in Washington, accused Trump of a "blatant violation of the statutory ?ban on the use of appropriations for 'publicity or propaganda purposes.'"
Taxpayer-funded television ads glorifying Trump began airing in late September, sparking a bipartisan backlash.
In a post on his Truth Social site on Monday, Trump said he considered the ads to be "a positive promotion for ?our Great U.S.A." but that ?they would no longer be funded by taxpayers. The White House said this week his MAGA PAC would fund the ads.
The ?DNC, the main governing organization of the Democratic Party, said in its lawsuit that the ads continued to air after Trump's comments.
"With less than 30 days remaining before the midterm ?election ?and millions of public dollars apportioned to pay ?for propaganda ads still unspent, ?the DNC has no choice but to take action in defense of free and fair elections," the lawsuit stated.
The ads ran during football games as recently as Sunday and during other programming. The New York Times reported that Trump personally directed the White House budget director to use taxpayer money for the TV spots, citing sources.
One ?ad features Trump declaring that "America will never be ?a communist country" while a chorus repeats the ?words "love me." Another combines images of ?Mount Rushmore with footage of Trump praising a "golden age of ?America."
Another new ad recently has featured ousted ?Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. ?A source briefed on the matter told Reuters the government-funded ads will end this week.
The White House said Trump's political action committee will
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Oct 07, 2026
ITHACA, N.Y. (AP) — The woman accusing several men of raping her at a Cornell University fraternity party was "misled" about the status of the criminal investigation in the weeks after she went to police, her lawyer said Wednesday.
Even as she took her allegations about a 2024 gang rape at the Chi Phi fraternity house through Cornell's internal disciplinary process, the university's police department gave her the impression that a criminal investigation was continuing, lawyer Thomas Giuffra told The Associated Press.
In fact, the criminal inquiry ended almost as soon as it began.
Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten, the local prosecutor, made the decision not to go forward with a criminal case within days of the woman giving her first substantial interviews to police.
Van Houten has said that he asked Cornell's police department to convey the decision to the woman, who is referred to in court documents as Jane Doe, but never spoke personally to her or her lawyer.
Giuffra said the woman was told that the criminal investigation was ongoing.
"I think she was misled. She was told it was still — they weren't going to prosecute, but they were still investigating," Giuffra said. "I was involved with this case early on. I thought they were still investigating. It was news to me that they weren't doing anything."
Giuffra added that at the time, he assumed investigators just needed more time to speak with witnesses and build a case.
"But nothing was being done, and we didn't know that," Giuffra said.
A message seeking comment was left for Van Houten. Cornell's media relations office, citing pending litigation, declined to comment on behalf of the university's police department.
The district attorney said in a statement last week that he was confiden
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Oct 07, 2026
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has given the crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln a high-level award during a visit to the aircraft carrier Wednesday, a day before the ship returns home to San Diego after a record-long deployment in support of the Iran war.
The Presidential Unit Citation, the highest honor a unit can receive that is typically reserved for significant achievement in combat, was bestowed upon the Lincoln and accompanying ships for "40 days of combat operations and an ironclad maritime blockade against Iran in support of Operation Epic Fury," Hegseth said, referring to the Trump administration's code name for the Iran war.
The carrier endured a record 265 uninterrupted days at sea, and its extended deployment drew national attention following reports of crew stress and poor mental health, as well as supply shortages, including food and hygiene products. After more than 10 months deployed, the Lincoln's crew got a stop in Thailand early last month on the way back from the Middle East.
Pentagon chief visits the crew and acknowledges long time at sea
Hegseth, who flew out to the ship before its arrival Thursday in San Diego, acknowledged to the crew that "I'm the only thing standing between you and home" and that his intention was "once they pull up to the dock, we're getting out of the way."
Long deployments can tax
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Oct 07, 2026
Students at Cornell University began what was billed as a seven-hour sit-in on Wednesday in solidarity with "Jane Doe," the former student who alleges she was drugged and raped by multiple members of a fraternity on its Ithaca, N.Y., campus in October 2024.
"Seven hours for the seven hours she endured," a coalition of Cornell student groups said in an Instagram post announcing the demonstration. "Seven hours of solidarity. Seven hours demanding change."
About 80 students gathered in a campus dining hall named for Pulitzer Prize-winning author Toni Morrison on Wednesday afternoon, according to NBC News. The protest was part of "Zero Day," which organizers described as an "economic blackout calling on students to disrupt business as usual by not attending class or spending on campus."
A Cornell University student sits with a sign during a campus-wide sit-in on Oct. 7.Ryan M
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Oct 07, 2026
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., speaks during the Senate Republicans' news conference in the U.S. Capitol on June 23, 2026. Cotton is the most vocal opponent of the Sunshine Protection Act in the Senate. —Bill Clark—CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty ImagesIn less than a month, most of the U.S. will fall back an hour, continuing the cycle of biannual clock changes. Some lawmakers are trying to end that practice—but are facing pushback from others.
In July, the House passed a bill with bipartisan support that would instate Daylight Saving Time year-round across the U.S.—the latest step forward in a yearslong effort to eliminate the clock change. President Donald Trump has repeatedly urged Congress to pass the bill. But the legislation now faces an uncertain future in the upper chamber. Earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader John Thune told POLITICO that there is no "consensus" among his colleagues on whether to advance the measure.
"The President feels strongly on it like he does a lot of issues," Thune said. "It's something we're having conversations about, but there's no clear path forward or consensus on it yet."
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Oct 07, 2026
WASHINGTON (AP) — The union representing thousands of flight attendants said Wednesday it has safety concerns about President Donald Trump's proposed triumphal arch that will be on final approach to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
Association of Flight Attendants-CWA President Sara Nelson said the 250-foot (76 meter) arch compounds multiple safety concerns that she said have gone unaddressed from a deadly January 2025 crash over the Potomac River that killed 67 people. Nelson also criticized Trump's plan to turn the arch into "a top grade military complex" able to host drones and snipers while storing ammunition.
"DCA is already stretched to its limit, we do not need an obstacle taking up space in our flight path," said Nelson. "Nor should commercial aviation have to dodge military drones, missiles or snipers while attempting to take off or land at Washington National Airport. Safety first always."
Nelson's statement on behalf of the union, which represents 55,000 flight attendants across 20 airlines, joins the voices of an assemblage of veterans' groups, Congress members and others with safety concerns and complaints about the memorial's threat to historic and symbolic sightlines between different landmarks in Washington, D.C.
Though the arch has received early approval from the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, whose members were all tapped by Trump, a group of three veterans and an architectural historian sued, saying the project needs to be approved by Congress.
Last month, the
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Oct 07, 2026
Christa Pike is feeling "angry and confused" after waking up in the hospital in the wake of a failed execution attempt that left her with severe physical health challenges that put her on a "long road to recovery," her attorneys said on Wednesday.
Pike had been unconscious and in critical condition in the days after two doses of pentobarbital failed to end her life on Sept. 30, they said.
"On Monday night, it was our understanding that Christa was brain-dead and that life support would be removed the next day," Randy Spivey, a member of her legal team, said during a press conference Wednesday afternoon. "But on Tuesday, to the shock of everyone … Christa woke up and began talking."
Spivey said the effects of the pentobarbital have caused her to develop a blood clot, pneumonia and left her arms and hands "tremendously swollen," to the point where she's not currently able to use them. He added that Pike is still dealing with significant "cognitive confusion," but is "very aware" that the state had tried and failed to end her life.
The press conference came shortly after a hearing in which a judge granted Pike's attorneys' request to order the state to preserve all evidence connected to the execution, including medical equipment, communications related to the decision to call off the procedure or related to her emergency care and "anything that was in the actual room." The judge also ordered that any "barriers" that may prevent Pike from communicating with her attorneys while she's in the hospital be removed.
Pike's lawyers have repeatedly asked for Pike's death sentence to b
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Oct 07, 2026
Minutes from the Federal Reserve's September policy meeting reflect unanimous agreement among officials that interest rates needed to be higher to combat persistent inflation.
"Participants generally emphasized that inflation remained elevated while the labor market appeared to be near full employment, with some signs of strengthening, and that economic activity was expanding at a solid pace. Furthermore, almost all participants assessed that, while inflation risks were tilted to the upside, risks to the labor market had diminished and were now broadly balanced," minutes from the Sept. 16 meeting released Wednesday stated.
"Based on the outlook and the changing balance of risks, all participants viewed a higher target range for the federal funds rate as appropriate."
The Fed voted unanimously on Sept. 16 to raise rates, the first hike in three years. And at the time, most Federal Open Market Committee members saw a need for at least one more 25 basis point rate hike this year.
Markets were banking on a hike and expecting more to come.
But economic data released in the past few weeks has changed the picture considerably. "Core" PCE, the Fed's preferred inflation measure,
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Oct 07, 2026
Federal authorities have arrested a man accused of planning to carry out an ISIS-inspired mass shooting at the Mall of America in Minnesota, according to newly unsealed court records.
Sheikhdoon Mohamud was taken into custody Tuesday after allegedly purchasing an AK-47 and 200 rounds of ammunition from a confidential source for the FBI that prosecutors say he planned to use to attack a festival taking place at the Mall of America.
Mohamud has been under investigation by the FBI since December 2024 when a confidential source with the FBI began exchanging messages with him about either traveling to Somalia to fight on behalf of al-Shabaab or carrying out a mass casualty attack on U.S. soil, court documents show.
Prosecutors detail scores of communications between Mohamud and the FBI source where he allegedly detailed his hopes of martyrdom, including one where he discussed just getting a "gun here and just start killing a bunch of white ppl."
Aaronp/bauer-griffin/GC Images/Getty Images - PHOTO: A general view of the Mall of America on January 04, 2024 in Bloomington, Minnesota.By December 2025, Mohamud expressed interest in providing support to ISIS and the two regularly continued communicating as Mohamud shifted away from plans to travel overseas and instead indicated he was more intent on carrying out an attack in the U.S, the court documents allege. Throughout their communications, Mohamud allegedly suggested he had inspiration in his planned attacks from both the New Orleans New Years Eve attacker and Omar Mateen,
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Oct 07, 2026
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — The University of Arizona has suspended activities at its fraternities following persistent reports of misconduct, including assault, hazing, and drug and alcohol-related behavior, a university official said.
Just seven weeks into the fall semester, the university's Dean of Students Office was investigating multiple misconduct reports involving nearly half the school's Interfraternity Council chapters, Dean Chrissy Lieberman said Monday in a letter to the school's fraternities and sororities announcing the suspension.
The reports follow misconduct findings against some interfraternity chapters in the spring and multiple criminal investigations, according to the letter.
"The number of cases under investigation and the severity of the concerns is egregious," Lieberman wrote.
University spokesman Nick Prevenas did not immediately respond to a request for more information about the criminal investigations on Wednesday.
The Associated Press left messages with the university's police agency. Officer Frank Magos, a spokesperson for the Tucson Police Department, said he was unaware of recent cases involving fraternities that were investigated by the city's police agency.
Prevenas also did not say whether the suspension was triggered by recent public outcry over how Cornell University handled allegations that multiple fraternity brothers sexually assaulted a woman in 2024. Lieberman's letter noted that "the value of the Greek experience is under scrutiny nationwide."
The suspension prohibits fraternities from hosting, attending, participating in and sponsoring any organizational activities at least until th
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Oct 07, 2026
The badges of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are seen as they patrol the halls of an immigration court in New York in May. - Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images/File
The Department of Homeland Security's sweeping election-fraud operation has drawn on tens of millions of records, scrutinized dozens of nonprofit voter-registration groups and considered deploying undercover agents to investigate organizations suspected of helping noncitizens register to vote, according to newly obtained internal documents.
The 166 pages of records, released on Wednesday by the advocacy group Democracy Forward, offer a detailed look inside one arm of the Trump administration's escalating election-integrity campaign, which has marshaled federal investigators, immigration databases and voter records in an effort to identify noncitizens suspected of illegally registering or voting. They show the extensive infrastructure the administration has built within its immigration enforcement agency to pursue probes aligned with Trump's election fraud beliefs, with multiple layers of data reviews, dozens of organizations investigated, primary elections tracked and weekly reports summarizing the progress of the various projects.
Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative division of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, described the undertaking as a phased national initiative involving voter-roll acquisition, data ana
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Oct 07, 2026
Tropical Storm Isaias formed in the Gulf on Wednesday and is expected to become the first Atlantic hurricane of the season, forecasters say.
According to the National Hurricane Center in Miami, the storm will strengthen as it moves toward the U.S. Gulf Coast later this week, becoming a hurricane by Thursday. It could peak as a Category 2 storm with maximum sustained winds of 110 mph by Thursday night before weakening as it approaches the coast.
It's unclear exactly where Isaias might make landfall. Current models show the center of Isaias coming onshore anywhere from eastern Louisiana to the western Florida Panhandle. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency for 25 counties ahead of the storm.
Is the storm headed your way? Follow it in real time on the new Yahoo Weather app.
The NHC said there was "an increasing risk of dangerous wind and storm surge impacts along portions of the northern Gulf Coast," adding that floods will be possible due to heavy rainfall. Isaias is expected to produce rainfall amounts of 3 to 6 inches from far southeastern Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle. Some areas could see up to 10 inches of rain.
The Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June to November, has not gone this late in the year without a hurricane since 1905, according to the Associated Press. A typical Atlantic hurricane season produces 14 named storms, of which seven become hurricanes. This year, there have been nine named storms, and no hurricanes.
Where is Isaias now and what is its path?
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Oct 07, 2026
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Communications Commission is considering a request by a conservative group to loosen rules on political robocalls, including those with artificial intelligence-generated voices, before November's midterm elections.
Federal law currently bans most robocalls to cellphones unless the caller gets consent beforehand. The petition calls for a waiver that would allow political groups to use artificial or prerecorded voices in unsolicited wireless calls.
The Republican-led FCC advanced the request for public comment and could rule on it as soon as late October.
Consumer advocacy groups warn the proposed change could trigger a surge of unwanted, partisan and potentially misleading automated calls in the critical final days of the election, which will determine which party controls Congress for the final two years of President Donald Trump's term.
The potential perils became evident two years ago during the presidential primary season when thousands of voters in New Hampshire received a robocall with an AI-generated voice of then-President Joe Biden. The call suggested voters should forgo casting a ballot in the primary and "save" their votes for the general election.
Under the waiver request before the FCC, some state and federal laws protecting against deception and voter intimidation would continue to prohibit certain misleading election-related messages. But granting it could weaken a major deterrent for bad
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Oct 07, 2026
WASHINGTON — Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers appears to be breaking with President Donald Trump on another key issue less than a month before Election Day.
"Drinking a Labatt and watching the Red Wings, man, it just doesn't get any more Michigan than that," Rogers said in a new video ad released on Oct. 7. "Here in Michigan, we know that Canada is not our enemy. We need to end this tariff war now."
The statement marks the second time in recent weeks that Rogers spoke out — albeit without criticizing Trump by name — against one of the president's unpopular initiatives. This time, Rogers is calling for an end to Trump's widespread trade war against Canada, America's biggest trading partner.
The Republican Senate nominee also split with Trump on the Iran war in late September, saying it "needs to end and end quickly."
Rogers' public shift on tariffs comes amid mounting opposition in Michigan to Trump's tariffs and GOP concerns that voters will reject their candidates up and down the ballot for failing to address cost-of-living concerns. Election Da
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Oct 07, 2026
National Republicans have spent months trying to rescue Ken Paxton. He's complicating that effort.
Tensions are brewing with some Republicans after POLITICO published Paxton's closed-door comments that "D.C." Republicans were largely controlling his race.
"He is welcome to raise his own money and say whatever he wants," said one Republican involved in the Paxton rescue effort, who like others in this article was granted anonymity to speak candidly. "In fact, if he did that, he'd probably be winning right now and we wouldn't need to spend all this money."
Senate Republicans and top operatives didn't want to be in this position in the first place. Many had warned that the Trump effort to unseat Sen. John Cornyn and back Paxton in the primary would cost Republicans hundreds of millions to drag Paxton across the finish line in the general election. Cornyn and Senate GOP groups spent millions of dollars on ads during the primary attacking Paxton over his series of scandals and warning he was a flawed candidate.
Since then, the usual crowd of never-Paxton types has expanded into a wider circle of frustrated Republicans who are irked by the effort it's taking to boost the scandal-plagued Senate candidate. And Paxton saying he doesn't control his campaign messaging — alongside his remarks that President Donald Trump's midterm convention hurt him politically — isn't helping.
Paxton also complained about the drag of the Iran war and high prices on his campaign in another c
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Oct 07, 2026
Christa Pike is conscious and speaking in the hospital after surviving Tennessee's attempt to execute her last week, an outcome her legal team described as "unprecedented," and one that has raised questions about what happens next in her case.
Pike, 50, was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of her classmate, Colleen Slemmer, and spent 30 years on death row. Her execution was scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 30, but two doses of the lethal injection drug pentobarbital failed to kill her. She was taken to the hospital, where she received lifesaving care.
Pike's survival has brought intense scrutiny to Tennessee's execution procedures. Gov. Bill Lee suspended the one remaining execution scheduled for this year, and the state's top prison official, Correction Commissioner Frank Strada, is stepping down at the end of October.
Pike's lawyers said the resignation was "justified, but it does nothing to help Christa now. What happened to her Wednesday reflects a systemic failure that goes far beyond any one person," they said in a statement issued Sunday, according to ABC News.
Slemmer's mother, May Martinez, described the situation as a "mess" and said she was left without justice
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Oct 07, 2026
The 2026 House map continues to move further onto GOP terrain. But while Democrats are dreaming big, the GOP insists they can hold the majority.
Score talked to the DCCC's Deputy Executive Director Will Van Nuys and the NRCC's Communications Director Will Kiley.
The two operatives chose four under-the-radar races where they're feeling good about their underdog candidates pulling off an upset. If these races flip, they know they're having a good night.
"We're not saying that this won't be a tough fight to the end, but we know we feel very good about where we stand," Kiley said.
"Our job is to make sure that we raise as much as we can to expand this battlefield as far as we can," Van Nuys said.
Rep. Jeff Crank won this seat by 14 points in 2024 in his third bid for Congress. But Colorado Springs is "trending Democrats' way" with fast growth of younger and Hispanic populations. That shift, along with Trump's unpopularity, has Democrats hoping for a flip, Van Nuys says.
Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson's run for Senate has left this Northeastern Iowa seat open for the taking, Van Nuys argues. Frustrations with beef imports, rising gas prices and the popularity of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand have Democrats hoping state Rep. Lindsay James can turn this seat blue.
Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear is making it his personal mission to elect his former adviser and federal prosecutor Zach Dembo and flip Senate nominee Rep. Andy Barr's Lexington-based seat. Dembo released an internal poll in late September showing him with a five-point lead.
Van Nuys says emergency
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Oct 07, 2026
By Olena Harmash and Vladyslav Smilianets
KYIV, Oct 7 (Reuters) - Russia pounded Ukraine with waves of missiles and drones in one of its most "vile strikes" on Wednesday, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, killing at least 20 people, including children, and damaging industrial facilities and energy infrastructure.
Zelenskiy said the strike coincided with Russian ?President Vladimir Putin's birthday.
The heaviest death toll was in Pryluky in the northern Chernihiv region, where a Russian missile obliterated a five-storey residential building. At least ?14 people, including four children, were killed there, local officials said.
"Today, as a birthday 'gift' to Putin, the Russian army destroyed a residential building in Pryluky...," Zelenskiy said.
"The Russians wanted to strike painfully and demonstratively. This was one ?of the most vile strikes: 70 missiles in total, many of them ballistic."
An excavator and dozens of rescuers with shovels sifted through rubble at the site where several sections of the five-storey building collapsed.
Emergency workers used ladders to get to the upper floors of what remained of the building. Around 50 people were wounded, including seven children, regional officials said.
BIG JUMP IN REPORTED DRONE INTERCEPTIONS
Zelenskiy said six other people were killed in Kyiv, Oleksandria and Kremenchuk during the heavy overnight attack.
Russia's defence ministry said its forces had carried out a "massive strike" on military-industrial facilities ?in Kyiv and other Ukrainian regions, using high-precision land-, sea- and ?air-launched weapons, as well as drones.
Ukraine's air force said it had downed just over 80% of the 46 jet-powered drones launched by Russia — a sharp increase from recent weeks when, on average, air defences took down 50% to 60%.
Since the summer, Russia has used increasing numbers ?of the new high-velocit
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Oct 07, 2026
Two investigations are underway into a former Cornell University student's allegations that she was raped at a fraternity house in 2024 -- one to determine whether criminal charges should be brought and another to examine how the university handled her case.
Newly obtained videos reviewed by ABC News show members of Cornell's Chi Phi fraternity being questioned by university police in the weeks after the alleged assault.
One of the video shows Chi Phi members who were allegedly in the house that night, but not involved in the group sex, telling Cornell University police they heard it was all consensual.
One fraternity member told police in the video that "what people were saying was that there was like multiple consenting adults in this room."
Another told investigators that "the general rumor that was going around was that it was a ... consensual thing."
The investigator subsequently appeared to question how the fraternity members could possibly know the encounters were consensual.
"Dude. I was a college kid," the officer said. "I get it. I'm like, in college, I wouldn't have been like, 'Oh, that was a sick consensual act last night.'"
"I guess where -- how do they know it was consensual?" the officer questioned.
The fraternity member said he could not recall exactly what had been said but that he believed the men had told others they had sex with the woman.
"I can't recall exactly what was said, but yeah, I mean, they … they said that they had sex with her, I guess," the fraternity member said.
The officer pressed him on his inability to identify the fraternity members who were there.
"I just get worried because you know how it looks," the officer said. "You're a brother."
Angelina Katsanis/Reuters - PHOTO: Cornell U
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Oct 07, 2026
President Donald Trump announced a $6.6 billion investment with AI defense company Anduril Industries on Tuesday -- the most recent government funding agreement into a company with investment ties to the president's sons.
The Trump administration announced the Navy will support $2.9 billion of the total cost to help create a new facility in Baltimore County, Maryland, that will manufacture critical parts for the Virginia-class nuclear-powered fast-attack submarine.
"In a tremendous victory for our country and for the city of Baltimore, Anduril is investing $3.7 billion in a state-of-the-art shipyard that will be known forever as Arsenal-2," Trump said at an event announcing the investment.
Damien Eagers/PA Wire IRISH Press Association via AP Images - PHOTO: Donald Trump visit to Ireland"Right here in Sparrows Point, you'll build the next generation of American submarines, including autonomous subs, torpedo tubes, and critical components for our cutting edge Virginia-class attack submarines," Trump said.
Republican senator calls for Judiciary Committee to subpoena Donald Trump Jr. and Hunter Biden1789 Capital -- a venture capital firm that lists Donald Trump Jr. as one of six partners along with three founders -- claimed a major stake in Anduril in June 2025 from a $2.5 billion investment into the company.
Since that investment, Anduril has been awarded 135 other contracts with the U.S. government and to date has received around $1.8 billion from those agreements, according to active defense contracts posted to
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Oct 07, 2026
TOKYO - Mounting anger over a U.S. Marine arrested on suspicion of killing a Japanese woman in Okinawa has once again inflamed long-simmering tensions over the U.S. military presence in the prefecture, as Tokyo seeks to enact the most sweeping change in its security strategy in Okinawa in decades.
Lance Cpl. Devin Jacob Ballard, 20, was taken into custody on suspicion of killing Anna Yagi, 39, who died of suffocation in a hotel Saturday, local police said. Ballard is also suspected of stealing Yagi's wallet and other belongings.
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Ballard has denied the allegations, police said.
The case was referred to the local prosecutor's office, though it remains unclear whether authorities will prosecute Ballard. Under a long-standing agreement governing U.S. troops in Japan, Ballard is subject to Japanese jurisdiction because the alleged crime occurred while he was off-duty.
The incident drew immediate backlash from Okinawan and national authorities. Both the U.S. ambassador to Japan and the commander of U.S. Forces Japan were summoned to Tokyo, and Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi called the case "extremely brutal and heinous" in a statement on X.
About 180 people held a protest outside the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo on Tuesday evening, and a demonstration outside the Foreign Ministry is scheduled for Thursday evening.
U.S. Forces Japan said Tuesday that all personnel stationed in Okinawa would suspend all activities for 48 hours starting Wednesday and
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Oct 07, 2026
Tropical Storm Isaias formed in the Gulf on Wednesday and is expected to strengthen into the first Atlantic hurricane of the season.
Forecasters said Isaias will get rapidly more powerful as it moves toward the U.S. Gulf Coast later this week and is expected to become a hurricane by Thursday.
It was not immediately known where the storm might make landfall on the Gulf Coast. The National Hurricane Center's (NHC) initial projections said the center of Isaias could come onshore somewhere between eastern Louisiana and the western Florida Panhandle.
The NHC said there was "an increasing risk of dangerous wind and storm surge impacts along portions of the northern Gulf Coast," adding that floods will be possible due to heavy rainfall.
The Atlantic season has not gone this late without its first hurricane forming since 1905, according to the Associated Press.
An unusually strong El Niño has contributed to the relatively quiet Atlantic hurricane season by increasing wind shear — rapid changes in wind speed or direction with height — which can disrupt tropical storms and make it harder for them to strengthen into hurricanes.
Where is Isaias, and what is its path?According to the
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Oct 07, 2026
Tropical Storm Isaias has formed in the Gulf and is expected to approach the U.S. northern Gulf Coast on Friday after becoming a hurricane, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Isaias would be the Atlantic Basin's first hurricane of the season and is its ninth named storm. El Niño continues to bring a more active season in the Pacific. The storm formed with less than two months remaining in the 2026 hurricane season, which ends Nov. 30.
Maps show possible pathTropical Storm Isaias, which grew from Tropical Depression Nine on Wednesday and is pronounced "ees-ah-EE-ahs," is expected to pass to the north of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula on Thursday before approaching the U.S. Gulf Coast the following day, according to forecasters. It is expected to rapidly strengthen.
"Hurricane watches will likely be required for a portion of the U.S. northern Gulf coast later today," the hurricane center said Wednesday. Tropical storm-force winds were extending outward up to 45 miles from the storm's center.
Isaias is forecast to bring moderate to heavy rainfall to the Gulf Coast and into the rest of the Southeast this weekend into early next week. The hurricane center forecasts 3 to 6 inches of rain and as much as 10 inches in some places on the central Gulf Coast from southeastern Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle.
Some longer-range forecast models also see this mois
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Oct 07, 2026
Millions of Medicare beneficiaries will receive a $90 payment from the Social Security Administration this week as part of an effort to lower health care costs for older Americans.
President Trump announced on Oct. 2 that the administration would send a one-time payment to around one-third of people enrolled in Medicare Part B, which covers doctors' visits, outpatient care and preventive screenings.
In a White House statement, the Trump administration said the "premium rebates" were intended to help "enrollees pay for their Medicare Part B premiums." The payments will be issued automatically to 20.8 million qualified Medicare beneficiaries starting this week.
Most enrollees will receive a direct deposit for $90 on or around Oct. 8. Paper checks will be sent to some beneficiaries later this month.
The rebate comes from the Medicare Improvement Fund, which was set up by Congress in 2008 to make improvements to Medicare Parts A and B. The $90 payment will cover less than half of the standard monthly Part B premium, which is $202.90 for 2026, up from $185 in 2025.
Some have warned that the payments do not go far enough to cover increasing Medicare expenses. Juliette Cubanski, director of Medicare policy at KFF, a nonprofit health policy organization, said Part B annual premiums are expected to rise by $79 in 2027, which would consume "most of the $90 payment." The KFF
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Oct 07, 2026
In July, Reps. Mike Lawler, a New York Republican, and Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat, had a request for the Federal Election Commission: help make sure artificial intelligence chatbots do not feed voters false information about the 2026 midterm elections.
The lawmakers, writing to the FEC as well as the Justice and Homeland Security departments, urged the agencies to coordinate on "AI-driven threats to election integrity" and to press AI companies on their safeguards. Their concerns come as a quarter of likely voters use AI tools daily and at least 38% have gotten information about candidates or voting from AI search summaries, according to a September survey released by the American Association of Political Consultants Foundation.
But later that month, FEC Commissioner Shana Broussard, a Democrat, wrote back with a blunt answer: the agency couldn't help. With only two of its six commissioner seats filled, the FEC "cannot proceed," she wrote, according to documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
Broussard signed the letter as an individual commissioner. Without a quorum — the four members needed out of a total of six — she could not under federal law even speak for the agency.
With Election Day just four weeks away, the exchange offers a window into how little the FEC can do as campaigns enter their final stretch. Without a quorum, agency staffers are limited to collecting and publishing campaign finance reports, answering questions from candidates about the law and fielding new complaints.
But the agency charged with policing how campaigns raise and spend money can't open investigations, iss
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Oct 07, 2026
London — The involvement of a small American firm linked to associates of President Trump in an energy project in Bosnia and Herzegovina worth more than $1.5 billion has raised questions about how the White House could be using its leverage in the fragile Balkan state.
U.S. lawmakers accuse the Trump administration of lifting sanctions on Bosnian Serb separatist leader Milorad Dodik in an effort to enrich and empower allies of Mr. Trump, and of undermining longstanding U.S. foreign policy interests in the region in the process.
On Sunday, Mr. Trump was hailed by Dodik after his Serb nationalist party won one of Bosnia and Herzegovina's three presidency seats, which are split between Bosnia's Muslim minority, known as Bosniaks, as well as Serb and Croat ethnic groups under the country's complex power-sharing electoral system.
"If it had not been for Donald Trump's magnificent victory … we would probably be political corpses today," Dodik told supporters in a speech, in which he also thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for his support.
Company with links to Trump poised to build gas pipelineAAFS Infrastructure & Energy, a company incorporated in the U.S. last year and headed by President Trump's former personal attorney Jesse Binnall and Joseph Flynn, the brother of Trump ally General Michael Flynn, is close to securing a contract to develop the Southern Interconnection Gas Pipeline.
The pipeline project has been discussed by Bosni
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Oct 07, 2026
It's common sense that common cents are getting less use in Americans' daily lives. Congress has already taken action to eliminate the lowest rung — the penny — and now another coin collecting dust in people's wallets could be on the chopping block next.
The House and Senate both passed bills earlier this year aimed at eliminating the penny once and for all. The bipartisan Common Cents Act was unanimously approved in each chamber, but has yet to get President Donald Trump's signature to become law.
It followed the Treasury Department announcing last December that the U.S. Mint would no longer produce pennies, which at the time cost more than three times their value to make.
Trump's First-year Government Overhaul Delivers Change Washington Hasn't Seen Since The 1960S
U.S. nickels are shown on display at an unveiling ceremony Jan. 12, 2006, in Washington, D.C.Now, lawmakers want the administration to act on another portion of their bill, which would direct the Treasury to study the potential of making the nickel with cheaper materials than are currently used.
"If it costs 13 cents to make a five-cent coin, Washington should fix the problem instead of wasting more taxpayer money," House GOP Conference Chair Lisa McClain, R-Mich., told Fox News Digital. "My bill gives Treasury a path to make nickels at a lower cost without disrupting how Americans use them. It is a simple reform that saves money and brings a little more common sense to government."
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Oct 07, 2026
Much of President Donald Trump's second term has focused on changes to the nation's capital.
But his ambitions to remake the physical architecture of the presidency transcend Washington: Trump wants to transform his West Palm Beach golf club into a presidential retreat modeled after Camp David.
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The plan calls for a parcel of the private club to be designated a permanent, official sanctuary for foreign leaders and future U.S. presidents, designed to host international summits and house presidents when they take vacations in Florida, according to a proposal presented to Palm Beach County officials by Trump International Golf Club's legal counsel. Future presidents would also be offered comped memberships to the Trump club.
"Just as Camp David, Windsor Castle, or the Elysee Palace are known worldwide, so too will the Presidential Golf Course in Palm Beach County," Harvey Oyer, a lawyer representing the Trump course, wrote to the Palm Beach County Board of County Commissioners in a letter last month. Oyer asked the county, which owns the property the course is on, to provide a piece of the land to the federal government, and he promised Trump would pay for the construction of a presidential residence and facilities on that land.
Oyer told The Washington Post that a name has yet not been selected for the presidential golf course.
"It would further cement Palm Beach County as one of the most recognizable brands and destinations in the world," Oyer said.
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Oct 07, 2026
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says the economy is "accelerating" and inflation, along with bond yields, will come back down once the conflict in Iran ends.
"Right now, we have this energy shock that's generated by the Iran conflict, and headline inflation is about 3.5%. But my message is underlying inflation — core inflation — is down to about 2.3%," Bessent said at the Pennsylvania Chamber of Commerce on Monday night.
He asserted that median wage growth is in line with headline inflation, and that "we will get to the other side of this Iran conflict. Energy will come back down, and the wage growth will continue."
Read more: How oil price shocks ripple through your wallet, from gas to groceries
He said 1 million private sector jobs have been created this year, while government jobs have been trimmed by 300,000.
"Real wage growth comes from private sector jobs, and I think we're just starting to see the acceleration here," he said.
But not everyone sees the wage picture the same.
Gregory Daco, chief economist for EY, notes that
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Oct 07, 2026
Health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor says no special measures have been ordered regarding a reported plague death in Russia (Igor IVANKO)The United States made a formal request pressing Russia for information on the reported plague death of a laboratory technician, a source close to the matter said Tuesday, as calls grew for transparency from Moscow.
Russian authorities have denied that they are imposing anti-plague measures and played down the reports of an incident at a plague research institute in Siberia's Irkutsk region last week.
But US President Donald Trump said he would speak soon with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, while US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the World Health Organization's head called on Moscow to be open about the situation.
"We have officially requested additional information from the Russian government," a State Department spokesperson said Tuesday.
"We are also in official communication with other countries around the world to share information," they added.
The request for information was sent via a confidential diplomatic communication, known as a demarche, according to a source close to the matter.
During a trip to Iceland, Rubio said: "We encourage Russia to be transparent and share more information with the world so that all of us could react accordingly and appropriately."
Trump later said he would be speaking to Putin about what happened.
"I have a call scheduled, yes," Trump told reporters at the White House when asked if he had spoken to Putin, adding that it would happen "very soon."
Asked what US intelligence agencies were saying about the situation, Trump said: "We're in very deep discussions. We'll be able to report on it probably tomorrow."
- Cause of death 'undetermined' -
Russi
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Oct 07, 2026
STOCKHOLM (AP) — Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai won the Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday for their efforts to resolve mysterious mirror images in chemical molecules.
Many molecules of life come in versions that look alike but aren't exactly identical, like right and left hands. One mirror-image of the chemical carvone smells like mint, for example, while the other has a whiff of caraway.
When designing drugs to treat diseases, scientists want to be choosy about which mirror-image they're getting. They want the version of a molecule that'll treat a cold, not the kind that'll make the sniffles worse.
Kagan and Soai found ways to make chemistry pick a side, designing and manipulating reactions to produce the desired mirror-image.
"This is probably the coolest experiment in organic chemistry," said Peter Somfai, a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry. "Taken together, the groundbreaking discoveries by Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai have reshaped our understanding of molecular chirality — how it is created, amplified and transmitted."
"Chirality" comes from the Greek word for ""hand."
Soai, in 2003, successfully created the first-ever chemical reaction which produced only one of a molecule's mirror-images. "Other than life itself, no one had previously achieved this feat," the committee said in a news release.
"It might be difficult to say that this drug, or that drug, was developed using this," Somfai said. "I would say all of them, because we use this as a tool, we use this as an understanding, how to develop catalysts, how they function."
"The medicines we have today would not be possible without this chemistry," said Rigoberto Hernandez, president of the American Chemical Society.
Kagan, 95 years old and born in France, is af
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Oct 07, 2026
NETANYA, Israel (AP) — Israelis gathered Wednesday to commemorate the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that killed 1,200 people, saw 251 taken hostage, and sparked a devastating war in Gaza that has devastated the territory and left its 2 million people living in dire conditions.
In southern Israel, families mourned at intersections, bomb shelters, and the site of a music festival that Hamas-led militants overran three years ago in the deadliest attack against Israel. It is the first anniversary that all the hostages are home, marking a new stage of grief.
For Palestinians, the anniversary brings another day of life of misery and difficulties after an Israeli retaliatory campaign in Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of people. Most of the population of about 2 million people live in vast, squalid tent camps, with large parts of the strip's cities reduced to rubble. More than half the territory remains in the hands of the Israeli military, and despite a ceasefire deal reached nearly a year ago, Israeli strikes continue almost daily.
For the region, the day highlights a startling transformation over the past three years. Israeli troops occupy a large chunk of southern Lebanon in their conflict with Hezbollah, which began firing on Israel in 2023 in support of Hamas. Iran and the United States are locked in a confrontation that has seen attacks across Arab Gulf countries and has shaken the global economy — a conflict that Israel helped launch and that
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Oct 07, 2026
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A Texas man who fatally shot a convenience store clerk was put to death Wednesday evening, becoming the 30th person executed in the U.S. this year and the first since Tennessee's failed attempt to administer a lethal injection to Christa Pike a week ago.
Jamaal Howard, 46, was pronounced dead at 8:03 p.m. after receiving a fatal dose of pentobarbital at the state prison in Huntsville. He was convicted of killing Vickie Swartout, 42, in a 2000 store robbery caught on surveillance video.
Asked by the warden if he had a final statement, Howard apologized profusely to some members of his victim's family, who watched through a window just feet from the death chamber.
"I wish that you accept my apology and I wish for your forgiveness," he said, shortly before the injection got underway. "I'm sorry for what happened. I wish you can learn to forgive me one of these days."
He also thanked his friends and family and said he loved them, adding he was "in a good state of mind to find peace and the Lord, so I thank y'all." He concluded with: "Hey, enjoy life, and peace to y'all."
Man took a few breaths and gasped as the drugs began flowing
As the pentobarbital began taking effect, Howard took a couple of breaths and gasped. He then began making snoring sounds, coughed and resumed the snoring sounds, each time the sound becoming quieter. Within about 30 seconds, all movement stopped.
He was pronounced dead 19 minutes later.
His sister was among witnesses watching through a window from an adjacent room and became distraught, exclaiming several times: "Get me out of her
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Oct 07, 2026
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans are entering the final month of the midterm campaign increasingly anxious that the $1 billion at their disposal may not be enough to fend off sweeping losses as the party reckons with President Donald Trump's unpopularity, persistent cost concerns and the fallout from the war in Iran.
The cash advantage, spread out across a half-dozen groups, is driven largely by the Trump-aligned MAGA Inc., which had nearly $416 million in cash on hand at the end of August and began stepping up its spending on critical races in September.
But that money may have come too late, forcing the president's group to pay much higher rates because of the shrinking availability of air time. Four Republican Senate campaign officials said groups that reserved advertising time last spring paid much lower rates than MAGA Inc. and its affiliated groups.
Instead, by waiting until September, Trump-connected organizations are sometimes paying more than five times what they would have spent if they acted earlier.
A representative of MAGA Inc. familiar with the group's strategy said its spending has allowed Republicans to keep races more competitive than they would have been otherwise. In some cases, the group has been the only one on the air criticizing Democratic candidates.
The MAGA Inc. representative and the Republican Senate campaign officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy.
The challenge is acute in places like Texas, where Trump will travel on Wednesday for the second time in a week to stump for Republican Ken Paxton's Senate campaign. The state hasn't elected a Democratic senator since 1988, yet MAGA Inc. has spent more
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Oct 06, 2026
Nidal Hasan, who was sentenced to death for the 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, will be executed by firing squad on Dec. 3, according to a memo from the acting Army secretary.
The execution, the first carried out by the U.S. military in more than 60 years, is scheduled for 1 p.m. CT, according to the memo issued Tuesday by acting Army Secretary Adam Telle.
The Pentagon announced Monday that Hasan would be executed by firing squad after President Donald Trump approved the decision Friday.
Handout/Getty Images - PHOTO: Maj. Nidal Hasan Moved To JailUnder the military's execution process for prisoners on death row, the Army secretary initiates the proceedings, which then require approval from the defense secretary and eventually the president.
Under Army policy, executions must happen within 150 days of the president approving it, but no sooner than 60 days.
The military has not executed a service member since 1961, when Pvt. John Bennett was put to death after being convicted of the rape and attempted murder of an 11-year-old girl in Austria.
On Nov. 5, 2009, Hasan, then an Army psychiatrist, opened fire at the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at the Fort Hood military base, killing 12 soldiers and one civilian before he was shot, severely wounded and arrested.
Hasan was convicted of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder and sentenced to death in 2013. He was sent to a military detention center at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas.
He is one of four death row inmates in the Army justice system.
The announcement of his execution comes after ABC News reported in June that the Army had been
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Oct 06, 2026
Truck stops nationwide were warned to "proceed with caution" Tuesday by a major industry group after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to promote the use of "red dye" diesel fuel.
Red dye diesel is exempt from federal excise taxes because it is intended for farm equipment and other off-road uses.
The order, signed before farmers in Nebraska on Monday night, aims to bring down fuel prices by "temporarily" allowing highway use of red dye diesel fuel, according to a White House statement.
U.S. voters are deeply frustrated by the high price of gas, and the Trump administration is under intense pressure to bring down fuel costs before the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
Monday's order instructs Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to "defer certain diesel fuel tax payment obligations and to provide penalty relief to the extent permitted by law."
It does not waive the federal taxes, because only Congress can eliminate a tax.
Following Trump's directive, the Energy Marketers of America warned gas stations to "proceed with caution."
"Whether relief is available, whom it covers, and on what conditions depend on Treasury determinations and guidance not yet issued," the group said. "Deferral is not forgiveness."
Moreover, the order does not "resolve EPA or state restrictions" on the dyed variety of diesel fuel, the EMA said.
Other trucking and gas industry groups sounded a similar note of caution.
"The White House appears to be trying to encourage the supply chain to move toward selling dyed fuel in non-traditional ways," the Society of Independent Gasoline Marketers of America and the National Association of Truck Stop Owners said in a note to their members.
"We do not expect most reputable diesel retailers and fuel marketers to do this,"
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Oct 06, 2026
With the astonishing news that Christa Pike is conscious, talking and making a "medically unprecedented" recovery following her botched execution, Tennessee is now facing a critical question: Will the state try to kill her again?
"Against all odds, Christa Pike is conscious, speaking, and continues to receive critical medical care," her attorneys said in a statement on Oct. 6. "Her prognosis remains unclear but, at a minimum, we expect a long recovery."
So far, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has not responded to repeated calls from Pike's attorneys and death penalty observers to commute her sentence to life in prison. That leaves open the possibility that Pike will face a second execution, even after her attorneys said the first attempt on Sept. 30 amounted to unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment.
"We're in uncharted territory," said Robin Maher, executive director of the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, which does not take a stance on the death penalty.
"The U.S. Supreme Court has not decided whether a second execution attempt would violate the constitution since 1947," Maher told USA TODAY. "These are questions that have never needed to be asked before and no one knows the answers."
As Pike continues to recover in a Tennessee hospital, USA TODAY is looking at the issues that state officials will need to weigh when deciding whether Pike will live or die.
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Oct 06, 2026
Susan Collins; Troy Jackson. (Getty)Republican Sen. Susan Collins and Democratic challenger Troy Jackson debated for the first time Tuesday in Maine, trading attacks over President Donald Trump, the cost of living and abortion in one of the most closely watched Senate races in the country.
Maine is central to Democrats' path to the Senate majority as they try to capitalize on Trump's unpopularity. Jackson tried to do just that Tuesday by tying Collins to Trump, name-checking him at least 20 times in one hour of debating on WGME-TV.
"It matters who you stand with," Jackson said in his opening statement. "I don't owe Donald Trump and the billionaires anything. I don't fight for billionaires like she does."
Collins, meanwhile, emphasized multiple instances when she opposed the Trump administration.
She also sought to localize the race and pitch her seniority — and her perch as chair of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee — as a boost to Maine. She touted $1.5 billion in federal funds that she has brought home to the state for 672 projects in the last five years, "from Madawaksa to Kittery, from Eastport to Rumford."
"I've been able to bring home federal dollars to help ease the burden on our taxpayers," Collins said.
Jackson set the tone for the debate early by connecting Collins to Trump and repeatedly saying she votes in alignment with him 96% of the time. Collins questioned the methodology of the study he cited.
In a moment that
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Oct 06, 2026
Students chant slogans during a demonstration against under-resourced schools, in Paris, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026.
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Teresa Suarez
What began as protests over missing teachers, overcrowded classrooms and deteriorating schools has grown into a nationwide crisis in France, drawing hundreds of thousands into the streets and triggering violent clashes between demonstrators and police.
Students say years of underinvestment have left them with teacher shortages, long school days and deteriorating facilities. The government says those legitimate concerns have been overtaken by violent groups, while unions and opposition parties accuse officials of responding to young protesters with excessive force.
The Union Syndicale Lyceenne, a high school students' union, said the movement had reached a "new record" on Tuesday, claiming 1,800 schools were blocked, disrupted or closed. Less than three weeks earlier, it had all begun at a single school outside Paris.
What sparked the protests?
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Oct 06, 2026
Christa Pike is conscious and speaking in the hospital after surviving Tennessee's attempt to execute her last week, her lawyers said Tuesday.
"Against all odds, Christa Pike is conscious, speaking, and continues to receive critical medical care. Despite the severe damage she endured to her arms, she is still handcuffed and shackled to the bed. Her recovery is medically unprecedented. Her prognosis remains unclear but, at a minimum, we expect a long recovery," her legal team wrote in a statement released to the media.
Pike had been unconscious and in critical condition in the days after two doses of pentobarbital failed to end her life on Wednesday, Sept. 30, according to her attorneys.
Dr. Joel Zivot, a medical expert who has consulted with Pike's legal team, told the Associated Press that the latest update "bodes well for a good recovery," but said that the full picture of her long-term health won't be clear for some time.
"She has recovered to a certain degree that she's able to be off a ventilator and able to speak, but in no way would I announce her free of further serious risk," he said. "There's still a lot of bad things that can happen here."
Fallout from the failed execution has brought intense scrutiny to Tennessee's execution procedures. Gov. Bill Lee suspended the one remaining execution scheduled for this year and announced that the state's top prison official would be stepping down.
In a statement, Correction Commissioner Frank Strada said resigning was "in the best interest of Tennesseans" while an independent review examines what happened on Sept. 30.
Strada will leave at the end of October, and an interim commissioner will be named later, Lee said.
Pike's lawyers said the resig
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Oct 06, 2026
Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a press conference at the House of Collections in Reykjavik, Iceland, on October 6, 2026. - Mark Schiefelbein/Pool/AFP/Getty Images
The Trump administration is struggling to get clear answers about the death of a Russian laboratory worker at an institute dedicated to studying the plague, amid days of stonewalling from Russian officials about the mysterious circumstances surrounding the episode.
The death of the technician at the Irkutsk Research Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia immediately raised alarms throughout the administration, prompting a race to compile intel and plot for a potential public health response, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
But Russia's reluctance to share information about the incident has complicated those efforts, leaving officials uncertain what broader risks it could pose — and how exactly to defend the US against them.
"It's incumbent upon Russia to obviously share more information with the world," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday. "Maybe it's bigger than we thought. We don't know, but I think it would be reckless at this moment, given the limited information we still have, to speculate."
US officials were in touch with the Russian government as early as last Friday, a St
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Oct 06, 2026
People pay their respects at a memorial on the steps of the Town Hall, following a vigil the previous day, in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada, Feb. 14, 2026. - Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press/AP
US authorities have announced the arrest of a 30-year-old from Washington state in connection with the February school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia.
The person, identified by authorities as James Cody Bryant, was arrested in Bellingham, Washington, on Tuesday morning on a charge of conspiracy to murder persons in a foreign country, according to an announcement by the US Justice Department. The February attack on a secondary school in the small town of Tumbler Ridge was Canada's deadliest school shooting in decades, leaving eight people dead and dozens wounded.
Bryant was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday afternoon in Seattle, according to a press release ahead of the announcement. CNN has not yet confirmed whether Bryant has legal representation.
Bryant was allegedly "in repeated contact with" the 18-year-old Canadian shooter, Jesse Van Rootselaar, "offering advice, sending money and even agreeing to live stream the horrific event" on Twitch, said Neil Floyd, the acting US attorney for the Western District of Washington, at a press conference in Seattle.
The money Bryant gave the shooter amounted to a little over $100, primarily to buy a lighter and a pair of shoes that Van
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Oct 06, 2026
President Donald Trump has issued an executive order that makes a specific kind of tax-exempt diesel fuel reserved for farm and construction equipment available to a broad set of road vehicles in an effort to reduce overall diesel costs.
The type of diesel, known as dyed diesel, is exempt from a 24.4-cent per gallon federal tax, making it a lower-priced option than regular diesel. Some states expanded access to dyed diesel in a similar fashion over recent weeks, providing relief from state diesel taxes.
Dyed diesel is nearly identical to regular diesel, besides a small amount of dye used by law enforcement officers and inspectors to ensure only permitted vehicle owners avail themselves of the fuel.
Should you use your 401(k) to pay off credit card debt?The executive order on Monday came weeks ahead of the midterm elections, targeting costs associated with a fuel vital to the supply chain for everything from groceries to clothing to electronics.
The White House called on federal agencies to defer payment of federal road taxes over the remainder of 2026, and seek out ways to relieve payment of the deferred taxes.
"Farmers and truckers are essential to the American way of life. Restricted global diesel supply has led to rising prices, and these key industries have been particularly hard hit," the White House said in its executive order.
"While my Administration has already undertaken hist
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Oct 06, 2026
Delta Air Lines Flight 7, slated to depart for Tokyo, carrying 275 passengers and 15 crew members, struck an Air Canada passenger jet with its left wingtip, a Delta spokesperson told Fox News Digital. No injuries were initially reported.
"While taxiing at Los Angeles International Airport, a Delta aircraft made contact with an Air Canada aircraft," a Delta statement said. "Nothing is more important than the safety of our customers and people, and we apologize to our customers for the experience and delay in their travel."
'We Need To Return Immediately,' Flight Crew Warns As Pilot Health Emergency Unfolds
Air Canada flight AC785 had just arrived to Los Angeles from Toronto when it was being towed to the gate, the airline told Fox News Digital.
"An aircraft operated by another airline made contact with its tail," Air Canada said. "There are no reported injuries. The Air Canada aircraft will be taken out of service for inspection and repairs.
Read On The Fox News App
Man Sparks Outrage By Calling 30-Minute Airport Ride For His Wife A ‘Massive Inconvenience'
A video posted online by TMZ shows an Air Cana
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Oct 06, 2026
Christa Pike, a Tennessee inmate who survived Tennessee's attempt to execute her, is awake and speaking as she receives treatment at a hospital, her attorneys said Tuesday.
Pike's attorneys said her prognosis is still unclear and said she faces "a long recovery."
"Against all odds, Christa Pike is conscious, speaking, and continues to receive critical medical care," attorneys for Pike said in a statement. "Despite the severe damage she endured to her arms, she is still handcuffed and shackled to the bed. Her recovery is medically unprecedented."
Her attorneys said they are grateful for the first responders and the medical team at the hospital "who treated Christa like a human and have provided exceptional care to her."
The statement was the first indication that Pike has improved since an ambulance carried her away from a Nashville prison last Wednesday.
Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital as they attempted to put her to death for the 1995 beating and stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer. The lethal injection drug didn't kill her, but her lawyers said her arms were left burned and blistered.
As recently as Sunday, her attorneys said Pike had remained unconscious and on a ventilator since the failed execution attempt.
Dr. Joel Zivot, a professor of anesthesiology and surgery in Atlanta who consulted as an expert for Pike's legal team, said the development "bodes well for a good recovery." But, he added, it could be weeks or months before anyone knows exactly what her recovery
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Oct 06, 2026
Tropical Depression Nine has formed off the coast of Mexico in the Gulf of America, and forecasts show it will be the Atlantic's first hurricane this season, making a dangerous landfall threat to the U.s.
The system is currently getting better organized, and the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said it is forecast to be a tropical storm on Wednesday and a hurricane on Thursday.
The NHC said the system is likely to be a Category 2 hurricane by Friday night, with estimated winds at 100 mph.
Farmers' Almanac Releases 2026-2027 Winter Forecast: What They Say To Expect For Blockbuster Winter In The Us
It will be named Isaias.
A tropical depression has maximum sustained winds of 38 mph or less, and unlike tropical storms and hurricanes, tropical depressions are identified with numbers and not names.
The depression is moving toward the east near 5 mph.
Hurricane Rachel Forecast To Turn Back Toward Land, Bringing Dangerous Surf To Cal
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Oct 06, 2026
Young Americans are reconsidering the value of a college degree given the high cost of college and the prospect of taking on student loan debt, which is prompting some colleges and universities to cut tuition costs to attract students and boost enrollment.
A report by Bloomberg noted that several colleges and universities have announced plans to lower their tuition either this year or in the next academic year when students arrive on campus in fall 2027. For example, Emory & Henry University historically offered significant merit scholarships amounting to up to $23,000 to help students negate some of the $40,000 price tag they faced, the report noted.
However, the school moved to reduce tuition by half to $19,900 for undergraduate students this academic year to lower the sticker price students are evaluating, while still offering merit scholarships up to $5,000 and covering tuition costs for certain in-state students from Virginia who meet income criteria.
"Our tuition reduction plan was just one piece of a larger strategic enrollment strategy," said Dr. Louise "Lou" Fincher, president of Emory & Henry University, told FOX Business. "Ultimately, we wanted our published tuition to better reflect the real cost of an Emory & Henry education."
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Oct 06, 2026
Attorneys for Olympic canoeist David Hearn asked the internal watchdogs at the Justice and Interior departments on Tuesday to investigate the circumstances surrounding his arrest, indictment and the dismissal of the case, according to a letter seen by CBS News.
Hearn's case garnered national attention, after he was falsely accused of vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and subsequently indicted on a charge of felony destruction of government property.
Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, later moved to dismiss the case after she said new information had come to light showing the damage had been caused by a contractor's "botched installation," not vandalism.
"Because of the actions of various DOJ and DOI employees, Mr. Hearn was deprived of his liberty, indicted for a crime he did not commit, threatened with incarceration of up to 10 years, and endured the defaming of his name and reputation by high-ranking government officials," Hearn's attorneys wrote in the letter to DOJ Inspector General Don Berthiaume and DOI Inspector General Caryl Brzymialkiewicz.
Those officials, they pointed out, included Pirro, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and President Trump.
"The DOJ OIG and the DOI OIG must conduct detailed and comprehensive investigations to determine what happened inside their agencies that led to the shocking and indefensible treatment of Mr. Hearn," they wrote. "Anything less than a full and fair review would be a betrayal of your mission and perpetuate the outrageous mistreatment of Mr. Hearn."
Hearn was
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Oct 06, 2026
Thousands of people gathered at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., on Monday in support of "Jane Doe," the former student who alleges she was drugged and raped by multiple members of a fraternity in October 2024.
The "Justice for Survivors" rally was organized by over 20 student organizations who led a late afternoon march to Day Hall, which houses the university's administrative offices and had been vandalized by activists overnight.
Students, faculty, and residents from across the state took part in the protest calling for Cornell administrators to resign over their handling of the case.
"We are known as the rape school," Saya Taylor, a Cornell sophomore, said at the rally. "We can be known as leading a nationwide reform movement."
Demonstrators held signs accusing the Ivy League school of protecting the alleged rapists and demanding accountability.
"Jane Doe deserved a campus that supported her," Taylor said. "Jane Doe deserved an administration that delivered a fair and proper judicial process. Jane Doe deserved a police department that would actually follow up on her case. Instead, she was silenced."
Late Monday, the Cornell University faculty introduced a resolution declaring it has no confidence in the administration's ability to address the "ongoing crisis of sexual assault" on campus.
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Oct 06, 2026
WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after President Donald Trump said he would start paying for controversial taxpayer-funded ads with a campaign account, there's no sign he plans to refund the millions of federal dollars already spent on them.
Nearly $12 million worth of ads have already aired, according to AdImpact, as part of the $20 million the Department of Homeland Security tapped for the contract.
But Trump's plan to pay for the ads with MAGA Inc. doesn't mean there's any reimbursement coming, said a White House official who was not authorized to talk publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Trump said the ads were "really good" and "promotion for the country, done by many presidents before." Asked whether he'd repay the funds already spent, he said, "We'll decide."
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer slammed Trump for not committing to reimbursement and said he believes the president's plan for covering future costs represents illegal coordination with his super PAC.
"Trump must return this money to the American people and there must be a full investigation into this gross waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars," Schumer told The Associated Press.
The ads, which began airing in late September, glorify Trump and echo his political messaging going into the midterms. One features a clip of Trump talking about the threat of communism and another is
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Oct 06, 2026
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state disaster emergency on Monday as neighboring Pennsylvania battles its largest measles outbreak in three decades.
"After reviewing the latest data on measles cases in New York State, I am declaring a state disaster emergency to strengthen our ongoing efforts to confront this disease," Hochul said in a statement. "No one should get seriously ill or die from a vaccine-preventable disease."
Measles cases surpass 1,000 in Pennsylvania amid the state's largest outbreak in decadesIt marks the first time a state has issued an emergency order since measles cases began rising last year. At least 95% of measles cases in the U.S. have been among people who are unvaccinated or whose vaccination status is unknown.
The order allows registered nurses to order the collection and testing of specimens for suspected measles cases.
Yuki Iwamura/AP Photo - PHOTO: New York Governor Kathy Hochul speaks during a news conference, Oct. 2, 2026, in New York.Early symptoms include cough, runny nose, fever as high as 104 Fahrenheit and red, watery eyes, according t
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Oct 06, 2026
Most families of the six soldiers killed in the deadliest attack of the Iran war were not attending a major White House event for Gold Star families hosted by President Donald Trump.
Only one family member of those killed in an Iranian drone strike March 1 on Port Shuaiba in Kuwait confirmed to The Associated Press that they planned to attend Tuesday's reception with Trump and the first lady. Troops who survived the attack have raised questions about why they were stationed at a site that didn't have sufficient air protection and was viewed as a likely target.
The war, launched Feb. 28, has claimed the lives of 19 U.S. troops and wounded more than 800 others. The annual gathering honors Gold Star Mother's and Family's Day, which falls on the last weekend of September.
The White House said this year's reception honors nearly 40 fallen service members from conflicts dating to the Vietnam War. Trump was expected to deliver remarks followed by a candle-lighting ceremony and a musical performance that included a rendition of "America the Beautiful."
Families are still waiting for answers about what happened in the March 1 strikeGold Star families have expressed frustration over the lack of informatio
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Oct 06, 2026
The former CIA officer arrested after authorities discovered roughly $40 million worth of gold bars in his Virginia home pleaded guilty in federal court on Tuesday to a single count of wire fraud, admitting he defrauded the U.S. government out of nearly $200 million for his personal benefit.
Alexandria Sherrif's Office via AP - PHOTO: CIA Official Gold BarsDavid Rush was previously described by prosecutors as a "master manipulator" who used his clandestine position to amass millions worth of gold bars and luxury watches -- though the government prior to Tuesday's hearing was tight-lipped over the extent of his alleged deception and the total amount he sought to profit off his job.
Former CIA officer who had 303 gold bars in his home ordered detainedThis is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
This article originally appeared on Good Morning America at https://abcnews.com/Politics/plea-hearing-set-former-cia-officer-allegedly-gold/story?id=137015337
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Oct 06, 2026
President Donald Trump said Monday night that he will no longer use taxpayer funds to pay for a multimillion-dollar pro-Trump ad blitz ahead of the midterm elections, saying his super PAC will now pay for them.
But he appears to have no plans to reimburse the federal government for funds already used on the ads, a White House official said Tuesday.
"The President's [social media post] was not referring to reimbursement," the official told ABC News.
While Trump dismissed criticism of the ads as "a rather standard thing to do," he posted Monday that he had decided to pay for them on his own dime.
"I have decided to do the Patriotic Ads, among others, and pay for them myself, and with money I raised for MAGA, Inc," Trump wrote, referring to his super PAC.
Eric Lee/Reuters - PHOTO: President Donald Trump speaks with media before boarding Marine One as he travels to Grand Island, Nebraska, on the South Lawn of the White House, Oct. 5, 2026.The move came after the U.S. government bankrolled a series of ads that aired nationally and heavily featured the president. One of the ads was a direct copy of a spot Trump's campaign ran in 2024.
A White House official confirmed to ABC News Monday night that MAGA Inc. will pay for ads moving forward but defended them as something previous administrations have used.
"Presidential Public service announcements are nothing new. Administrations of both parties have used public service announcements to explain policy and make the case for the nation's direction," the official said.
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Oct 06, 2026
More than 122,000 cases of Gatorade have been voluntarily recalled because they may contain undeclared food dyes, according to a Food and Drug Administration alert.
The recall affects 28-ounce bottles of four flavors of yellow and orange Gatorade sold in 37 states. They may be colored with synthetic food dyes, Yellow No. 6 and Yellow No. 5, or both, but the labels of the recalled products didn't properly disclose those ingredients.
While both dyes are legal for companies to use in food and beverage products, they have to be declared on labels because, in rare cases, they can cause allergic reactions, including hives, wheezing and asthma attacks.
The recall comes after PepsiCo — which makes Gatorade — announced in April 2025 that it would transition away from synthetic dyes in favor of natural ones. It's part of the company's efforts to comply with U.S. health officials' encouragement for food and beverage companies to stop using artificial coloring.
What products are affected? PepsiCo has issued a voluntary recall of cases of Gatorade Lemon Lime, Gatorade Lemon Lime Zero, Gatorade Orange and Gatorade Orange Zero. The products were shipped to more than three dozen states, including Alaska, Georgia, Iowa, North Dakota, New York and Texas.
The recall wa
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Oct 06, 2026
Supporters have launched an online campaign in recent weeks aimed at protecting the identity of a woman, identified as "Jane Doe," who alleges in a civil lawsuit that she was drugged and raped by multiple members of a Cornell University fraternity in 2024.
Jane Doe's lawyer says that the ex-Cornell student has received "multiple threats" in recent days aimed at exposing her real identity.
"There are people out there trying to track her down," Thomas Giuffra, who ?represents Jane Doe, told CNN's State of the Union on Sunday. "They said, 'We're gonna shut you up. You're gonna still get hurt by us. You're gonna pull this lawsuit out or we're gonna do something to hurt you even more.'
"The threats, the abuse to protect what's going on, the status quo — these guys are disgusting," Giuffra added.
Among those trying to identify Jane Doe is political commentator Michael Tracey, who publicly asked anyone with information about her identity to contact him and said he would publish her name and identifying details.
The possibility
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Oct 06, 2026
One day after a campus-wide alert notified students about a reported rape at a Cornell University fraternity in 2024, the school's police department received a tip from an anonymous caller saying that the Chi Phi's fraternity's leadership asked a potential witness to stay quiet because "the reputation of all involved and the frat would be ruined" if details of the incident spread across campus, according to the school records reviewed by ABC News.
Videos first obtained by ABC News showed that Cornell investigators in the following days began questioning witnesses about a potential coverup by the fraternity brothers.
"Chi Phi held a meeting essentially to get all of the men on the same page about what happened. I know for a fact there are group me messages about the situation," one female student told investigators.
'Jane Doe' solidarity posts flood social media after Cornell rape lawsuitThat student told investigators that the fraternity brothers described the incident as a "consensual orgy" but expressed concern that it "would be bad for [their] image."
The woman at the center of the case, an undergraduate student identified only as Jane Doe, originally made a complaint to campus police in November 2024, three weeks after the incident occurred, that she had been raped by 8-10 men at the Chi Phi fraternity house.
The case has now rocked the university and started conversations about
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Oct 06, 2026
BERKELEY, Calif. - After artificial intelligence safety advocates captured Washington's attention with dire warnings about the technology's power, the Trump administration and its allies embraced some of their suggestions, while moving to sideline the advocates themselves.
Battle lines have been drawn in recent days over part of an accord signed by President Donald Trump and AI chief executives last week: Who should audit AI companies' systems to ensure their technology behaves as intended.
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Leading AI companies - including OpenAI and Anthropic - have for years worked with a cluster of nonprofits concentrated in the Bay Area's AI safety community, which grew out of the effective altruism movement. But Trump's tech-world allies say the work of auditing AI should be taken on by America's largest consulting firms.
"In my view they should be professional auditors, not these NGOs," investor and former top White House AI adviser David Sacks said on his All-In podcast last week. He said in a post on X last month that the AI safety nonprofit METR, which has worked with Anthropic, was too close to the company to be called independent. Soon after, Anthropic said it would partner with consulting giant Accenture to build a team of outside evaluators.
At a conference here over the weekend, members of AI safety organizations grappled with the impact of what some see as a coordinated campaign to delegitimize their work and paint their community as cultish and unserious. The event took place at a former hotel po
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Oct 06, 2026
Thousands of people gathered at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., on Monday in support of "Jane Doe," the former student who alleges she was drugged and raped by multiple members of a fraternity in October 2024.
The "Justice for Survivors" rally was organized by over 20 student organizations who led a late afternoon march to Day Hall, which houses the university's administrative offices and had been vandalized by activists overnight.
Students, faculty, and residents from across the state took part in the protest calling for Cornell administrators to resign over their handling of the case.
"We are known as the rape school," Saya Taylor, a Cornell sophomore, said at the rally. "We can be known as leading a nationwide reform movement."
Demonstrators held signs accusing the Ivy League school of protecting the alleged rapists and demanding accountability.
"Jane Doe deserved a campus that supported her," Taylor said. "Jane Doe deserved an administration that delivered a fair and proper judicial process. Jane Doe deserved a police department that would actually follow up on her case. Instead, she was silenced."
Late Monday, the Cornell University faculty introduced a resolution declaring it has no confidence in the administration's ability to address the "ongoing crisis of sexual assault" on campus.
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Oct 06, 2026
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during morning trading last month in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago / Getty)The S&P 500 on Tuesday hit a record, as the index rose for a fourth straight day, supported by rising technology stocks, hopes for a positive earnings season, and a pause in oil's recent surge.
The broad-based closed higher by 0.58%, its first record closing high since Aug. 13. The Nasdaq Composite also jumped 0.45%. It also hit a record high for the second time this week.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq's gains were overwhelmingly powered by gains in tech companies, such as chipmakers Marvell and Broadcom.
Nvidia, the world's largest public company, also rose and moved closer to becoming the first company to ever reach $6 trillion in market value. Other trillion-dollar tech stocks also rose Tuesday. Microsoft, Amazon, SpaceX, Meta Platforms and Tesla shares all traded in the green.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang delivers the keynote address at the GTC AI Conference in San Jose, Calif., last year. (Josh Edelson / AFP via Getty)Investors are also looking forward to the start of the third quarter's earnings season, which begins in earnest next week with the country's biggest banks reporting their results.
"Heading into the start of the earnings season, analysts and companies have been more optimistic than normal in their earnings
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Oct 06, 2026
The US trade deficit jumped to more than $100 billion in August as importers wrestled with a new round of President Trump's tariffs and continued to bring in billions of dollars' worth of components for AI data centers.
The total gap: $105.6 billion, a 13.8% increase from July's revised $92.8 billion deficit, the highest level since early 2025, when importers stocked up ahead of Trump's "Liberation Day" and a later four-month surge in imports that pushed average monthly trade deficits north of $120 billion.
Imports rose in August by 4.3%, compared with a 1.4% increase in exports. The US brought in $420.8 billion in total imports in August against $315.2 billion in exports.
In an analysis, Capital Economics said the "sharp rise in imports suggests third quarter GDP growth will be well below our current forecast of 4.0%," suggesting that the final annualized figure could be closer to 2.5%."
"The relatively broad-based rise in goods imports mean net trade was still a drag overall," the group added.
The new data released Tuesday by the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis showed yet another pivot in global trade, covering the first month after a new phase of
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Oct 06, 2026
The $110 billion merger of Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery closed on Tuesday after Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan denied a last-minute effort to halt the deal.
The new company — known as Skydance — brings the HBO Max and Paramount streaming services under one umbrella, roughly seven months after Paramount won a long bidding war with Netflix (NFLX) for Warner Bros.
Skydance stock began trading on Tuesday under the symbol SKYD.
The merger faced plenty of pushback and a long road to closing. "The completed transaction unites two of media and entertainment's most storied companies, each with a history spanning more than a century, giving the combined business a rare legacy to build on," Skydance
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Oct 06, 2026
Communities with high birth and marriage rates could soon gain an advantage in securing federal transit money — a long-sought goal of the Trump administration but one that a top Democratic appropriator calls "bizarre and dystopian."
The Federal Transit Administration wants to revamp a multibillion-dollar program that helps state and local authorities fund infrastructure projects such as rail improvements and new bus lanes. Public feedback on the administration's plan, which was rolled out Oct. 1, is being accepted through mid-November.
The idea would fulfill a priority of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to steer grant money to parts of the country with birth and marriage rates higher than the national average, a policy initiative he unveiled shortly after being sworn into office early last year.
Under the transit proposal, the FTA would cover up to 10 percentage points more of a project's costs if an area's average birth and marriage rates meet, exceed or are just below nationwide thresholds.
"Moving forward, the federal government is focusing on smart, affordable projects with high ridership. If you want federal funding, your project needs to align with where communities and families are actually growing," the Transportation Department said in a statement.
But the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee had harsh words for the proposal.
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Oct 06, 2026
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday evening temporarily allowing the use of red-dyed diesel on public roads and deferring the federal excise tax on that fuel through the end of the year, a move aimed at lowering costs for truckers and farmers facing record-high diesel prices.
Red-dyed diesel is chemically the same product as standard highway diesel, but carries a red dye to mark it as off-road fuel — meaning it is not subject to the 24.4-cent-per-gallon federal excise tax that applies to diesel sold at the pump for road use, such as for tractors and heavy machinery. Using it in highway vehicles has been illegal, carrying penalties for tax evasion, according to CNBC.
According to the White House, the order instructs the Treasury Secretary to hold off on collecting federal excise taxes on highway use of dyed diesel between October 5 and December 31, 2026, and to do so without charging interest or imposing penalties. The Treasury is also directed to direct the Internal Revenue Service not to impose penalties for on-road use of dyed diesel during that period. The order further instructs officials to explore pathways, including legislation, to eliminate the deferred tax obligations entirely.
The White House projected that a trucker who tops off an 18-wheeler's tank with 250 gallons stands to save over $100 on a single fill-up, provided the trucker's state suspends its own diesel tax as well. On top of the federal levy, each state levies its own diesel excise tax, and those state-level taxes average out to 35.5 cents per gallon, according to CNN.
The order also directs the Secretary of Agriculture to coo
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Oct 06, 2026
The interior ministry said 86,000 had joined the protests, unions gave a higher figure (ROMEO BOETZLE)Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets across France on Tuesday, as unions and teachers joined high school students who for days have been demanding better learning conditions in protests punctuated by violent confrontations.
Students have blocked the entrances to hundreds of high schools for 15- to 17-year-olds since late September, complaining of missing teachers, overloaded timetables, dilapidated classrooms and buildings that cannot cope with rising temperatures.
Unions, rights groups and the children have accused the authorities of using disproportionate force -- a police stun grenade tore the hand off one teenager on Monday and another youngster had his teeth knocked out last week after police fired a grenade launcher at his head.
"I'm afraid for my future," Selma, 15, told AFP without giving her surname, among the thousands marching in the country's second largest city of Marseille.
The unrest has erupted with just months to go before the 2027 election to choose a successor to centrist President Emmanuel Macron, with far-right veteran candidate Marine Le Pen riding high in the polls despite a graft conviction.
"We just want to save our education and be educated," said Oceanne, 18, also at the protest in the southern port city.
She said she had suffered from absent teachers who were either not replaced or replaced by "pointless substitutes".
Another student held up a sign complaining of long hours at school.
"Timetables as packed as Le Pen's criminal record," it read, in a jab at the far-right presidential hopeful.
A major march was set to depart from central Paris in the early afternoon.
The interior ministr
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Oct 06, 2026
LONDON (AP) — British police on Tuesday arrested a 22-year-old man in London on suspicion of a terror offense over a security incident at a U.S.-run military air base in England that authorities have linked to Iran.
The arrest is the seventh in connection with a suspected plot against RAF Fairford, located 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of London, which has been used by American bombers to strike Iran during this year's war.
Five British men in their 20s were detained near the perimeter of the base in the early hours of Sept. 27, and a 25-year-old British-Iranian man was arrested in London on Thursday. All six have been released on bail under investigation.
Counter Terrorism Policing said a British national was detained Tuesday in the Westminster area of central London on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts.
Vicki Evans, the senior national coordinator for counterterrorism policing, said detectives "continue to pursue multiple lines of inquiry" and "remain committed to investigating all possible angles."
Scores of residents were evacuated from their homes near the base as armed police officers and army bomb-disposal experts swooped on the rural area late at night. Police later said they had found a quantity of an accelerant — gasoline — in three vans linked to the five suspects, but no explosives.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the United Kingdom saw "strong indications" that Iran played a part in the incident, without saying why or what the nature of the suspected plot was.
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Oct 06, 2026
Two injured crew members from one of the ships have been sent for treatment [Petko Momchilov / Reuters]
A civilian cargo ship has sunk and its crew is missing after being attacked by drones in the Black Sea, Bulgarian officials say.
A second vessel - carrying grain - was also hit within Bulgaria's exclusive economic zone, Prime Minister Rumen Radev said. Its 18 crew were rescued.
Radev did not say who was behind the attacks, which come as Russia intensifies strikes in the Black Sea, particularly the eastern side, as part of its war against Ukraine.
Moscow has not commented on the latest incident, a day after it was accused by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of striking a civilian vessel carrying corn. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the attacks were "unacceptable".
Air and sea drones were involved in the attacks at about 03:00 (23:00 GMT), some 70 miles (112 km) off the coastal town of Byala in eastern Bulgaria, Radev said.
The sunken ship was flying under the flag of Togo, he said. Named the Alfa Watan, it was a Turkish-owned general cargo ship and was reportedly heading for Sulina, Romania.
It is not clear what the Alfa Watan was carrying or how many people were on board.
A Bulgarian vessel was close by, but when they arrived all they saw was an overturned boat and rafts as well as life jackets. A search operation has been launched.
Radev said Bulgarian sailors had rescue
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