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Oct 23, 2026
Washington — Two former senior FBI officials are facing criminal charges for allegedly making false statements to Congress during testimony in 2023 about the bureau's investigation involving Hunter Biden's laptop.
Nikki Floris, 46, a former intelligence analyst in charge in the bureau's Washington Field Office, and Bradley Benavides, 56, the former deputy assistant director at the FBI's Counterintelligence Division, each appeared in court on Friday in Washington, D.C., where they were presented with a copy of a criminal complaint charging them with one count each of lying to Congress about their roles on the Foreign Influence Task Force during the 2020 election, specifically the FBI's Hunter Biden investigations.
A statement of facts prepared by the FBI and filed with the complaint alleges that Floris made false statements to Congress on July 19, 2023, and Benavides allegedly did the same that September. Their alleged false statements pertained to "their awareness of involvement in the FBI's investigations into Hunter Biden," it said.
"The evidence further establishes probable cause to believe that Floris and Benavides made these statements for the purpose of concealing [the Foreign Influence Task Force's] engagement with and communications about the Hunter Biden investigations and impeding the congressional investigation," it said.
The decision by the U.S. Attorney's Office in D.C. to charge the pair in a criminal complaint stemming from three-year-old allegations is highly unusual, and both their defense attorneys and the magistrate judge who presided over Friday's hearing and unsealing raised questions about the decision.
"The alleged conduct happened years ago. The government has had the information about this for years," said Ron Safer, an attorney for Benavides. He ask
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Oct 23, 2026
Jared Kushner is pushing back on a report involving a hacked iPhone, international spies and billion-dollar transfers from foreign governments.
An upcoming book by journalist Matthew Cole claims Kushner, who is President Trump's son-in-law, had access to more than $2 billion in "slush money funds" from Middle Eastern leaders in an attempt to influence U.S. foreign policy.
An excerpt of the book released Thursday details allegations encompassing Kushner's time as a senior White House adviser during the first Trump administration, which included a lead role in U.S. policy in the Middle East. Kushner had a major hand in negotiating key foreign policy deals that involved Israel, the Gulf states, China and Russia during that period.
Kushner and his legal team released fiery statements Thursday night categorically denying all accusations against him. Kushner said, "The allegations made by this author are completely insane and never happened." His attorney called them "false and defamatory" and said they intend to pursue legal action against those responsible, but did not specify whom.
The new book, "Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed's Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East," alleges Kushner had access to billions of dollars in undisclosed foreign bank accounts intended to pay for "influence within the U.S. government."
An excerpt from the book that was published in "Vanity Fair," but not independently verified by CBS News, says Dutch intelligence agents learned the Russians had hacked Kushner's iPhone in 2017 after flipping a Russian spy and subsequently gained access to Kushner's phone as well.
According
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Oct 23, 2026
A card with images depicting Alex Pretti and Renee Good is placed at a makeshift memorial in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on 28 January 2026.Photograph: Seth Herald/Reuters
The federal government has stopped sharing evidence with Minnesota authorities who are investigating the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal officers during a violent anti-immigration, anti-protest crackdown in the state earlier this year, state officials said in recent court filings.
Minnesota officials sued the Trump administration in March for access to materials they said they needed to independently investigate the shootings.
The family of Good, 37, earlier this month sued over her death when she was shot by a federal officer with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as she drove her car away during a protest in January.
Pretti, also 37, was shot dead in the street by a border patrol agent as he went to the assistance of a fellow protester on the icy city streets during fierce demonstrations against the crackdown. Both Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and ICE are under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security.
The shootings of the two protesters, both US citizens, was a turning point
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Oct 23, 2026
President Donald Trump said Friday that the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is continuing to fill with water, declaring that the landmark is "looking really good" and will be protected by anti-vandalism cameras.
The pool has become a recurring point of attention since Trump ordered it resurfaced in "American flag blue" ahead of the nation's 250th anniversary celebrations. The project has faced rising costs, algae issues, and damage to its freshly installed lining.
Trump shared an image of the Reflecting Pool on the Truth Social platform on Friday.In a message posted to Truth Social in the early hours of Friday morning, Trump said the Reflecting Pool was 85 percent full, "and looking really good!"
Trump added: "It hasn't worked properly since 1922, but will now. We have cameras set up to stop any potential Vandalism, including the grassed areas, which were destroyed by chemical poisoning with a large, and very inappropriate, phrase. The grass was completely replaced!"
The president also included in his post an image the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall, with the Lincoln Memorial centered in the distance.
Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment via email on Friday.
Cases Dropped Trump earlier this week threatened any potential vandals with jail time, reviving a dispute over cause of damage to the pool's lining. A judge dismissed a
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Oct 23, 2026
First lady Melania Trump (Finn Gomez/Getty Images)
First lady Melania Trump has successfully negotiated a temporary ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine to allow humanitarian aid and civilian evacuations in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian town of Oleshky, her senior adviser, Marc Beckman, revealed for the first time Friday on Newsmax's "National Report."
Appearing live in the Newsmax studio, Beckman disclosed that representatives of both countries had signed the agreement just hours before his appearance, marking a significant humanitarian breakthrough in the nearly five-year war.
"Let me start by being very crystal clear: the first lady of the United States of America has successfully negotiated a cease fire between Ukraine and Russia, localized in this region of Oleshky," Beckman told Newsmax.
The ceasefire, scheduled to begin Oct. 29, will allow Ukrainian and Russian civilian representatives to enter Oleshky, about 5 miles behind the front lines, to identify residents needing assistance and coordinate evacuations, Beckman said.
"It will bring humanitarian aid to the entire city, this includes medics, medicine, food, clean water," he said, noting the operation will include "an evacuation of the city of Oleshky as well."
Newsmax has been granted exclusive television access to accompany a delegation of Russian and Ukrainian observers entering Oleshky on Oct. 29.
Both Ukrainian and Russian officials agreed to allow Newsmax to document the humanitarian operation.
Beckman emphasized the immediacy of the breakthrough, revealing that the agreement had only just been finalized.
"As recently as this morning, I'm coming
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Oct 23, 2026
Oct 23 (Reuters) - The first Russian diesel bound for the US following a surprise agreement reached between Moscow and US President Donald Trump is aboard a tanker heading for New York, ship-tracking data showed on ?Friday.
Trump announced the deal this month as part of his efforts to bring down soaring diesel prices ahead ?of November 3 US mid-term elections.
Trump also waived parts of a new US sanctions law against Russia and threatened Europe with a US diesel export ?ban unless countries released more from their emergency reserves to help ease prices.
The Malta-flagged medium-sized tanker Agioi Fanendes was loaded with 40,000 metric tons of ultra-low sulphur diesel in Russia's Baltic port of Primorsk on October 22, according to LSEG shipping data. It is expected to arrive in the United States on November 7.
The identity of the buyer and seller were not immediately known. The ?cargo will be the first imported by ?the US since former President Joe Biden announced a ban on US imports of Russian oil and petroleum products in 2022.
Trump announced on October 9 that Russia would immediately export 300,000 metric ?tons, or 2.25 million barrels, to the US and global markets, followed by 500,000 tons in November and 1 million tons "immediately thereafter".
A Kremlin spokesperson on Friday confirmed a first ship under the deal had departed, but did not specify whether it was bound for the ?US market ?or elsewhere.
"As far as I'm aware, there have already been reports ?from the Ministry of Energy that the first ?tanker has, in fact, set sail for its recipients, its buyers. Further shipments will continue at a steady pace from here on," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on a daily conference call.
The deal with the US involved Russia lifting a self-imposed ban on diesel exports.
RUSSIA RESUMING GLOBAL EXPORTS Since the EU imposed a full embargo on imports of Russian oil products i
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Oct 23, 2026
President Donald Trump said Elon Musk has lifted restrictions on Ukraine's access to Starshield, the military equivalent of Starlink, amid confusion over who previously ordered access to the network be curtailed.
Trump declined to comment on reports that he called the SpaceX chief executive to ask Ukraine's access to the satellite network be fully reinstated, but described his relationship with Musk as "a very good one." The "bottom line" was that Musk had "put it back," he said in comments to reporters on Thursday.
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However, Ukrainian soldiers said Friday they were still experiencing Starshield disruptions, with no indication that any restrictions had been lifted.
On Friday, Starshield was still operating "with constant interruptions," although at a higher speed than on Thursday, Ukrainian commander Andriy "Klima" Klymenko, commander of the 414th Unmanned Systems Brigade, told The Washington Post.
"Right now we don't notice that restrictions on Starlink have been lifted," Serhii Beskrestnov, an adviser to Ukraine's defense ministry, wrote in a statement.
Ukraine's military access to Starshield, a secure satellite network designed for government use, was unexpectedly throttled last week, impeding Ukraine's midrange strike campaign on Russian-occupied territory. There is confusion over who ordered access to the network be curtailed, with both Musk and Trump suggesting it was the other side.
The curtailed service followed Trump's announc
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Oct 23, 2026
[Getty Images]
The Duchess of Sussex has said she was informed about "disturbing allegations" about her estranged father in 2018.
In a statement, Meghan said a letter containing allegations against Thomas Markle was sent to the Metropolitan Police that year and subsequently shared with her.
Her comments come after reports that images of child sexual abuse allegedly belonging to her father had been found at his former home in the Philippines, which she said were "deeply" distressing.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, Thomas Markle denied possessing child sex images, calling the accusations "sick lies".
The duchess said: "I am deeply distressed at the news that has come to light in the last 24 hours, and my thoughts are with any children who may have been harmed."
She said that when she received the letter outlining allegations against her father, she was "given assurance that these were being investigated".
She added she hoped it could be understood why she had kept her distance from her father and did "not allow him to have contact with our children".
This was "to protect them", she said, adding that she had "trusted that the authorities were doing the same for other families".
Meghan described the allegations as "more sickening than one could ever imagine" and said her "sincerest hope is that justice will be fully served and that the priority remains the safety and protection of innocent children".
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Oct 23, 2026
Elon Musk's influence over first Tesla (TSLA) and now SpaceX (SPCX) has long been measured in terms of corporate valuations, technological breakthroughs, and personal wealth, where his companies have made him the richest person in the world. Across the last few years, however, the centi-billionaire's growing portfolio of businesses has pushed him into a new lane entirely.
Over the past decade, Elon Musk has become far more than a corporate executive or political power broker. Through his control of companies underpinning global communications, military operations, space access, and artificial intelligence, Musk has acquired a degree of influence over national security, international relations, and the global economy that few private individuals have ever possessed.
An artilleryman of the Special Rifle Police Battalion of Zaporizhzhia region sets up Starlink satellite internet system, at a position, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, near the frontline in Donetsk region, Ukraine, October 16, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer/File PhotoReuters / REUTERS
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Oct 23, 2026
Elon Musk has adopted a war posture in response to looming threats of congressional investigations: If Democrats win control of Congress in next month's midterm elections, Musk has signaled he is bracing for a fight.
"Live by the sword, die by the sword," he said Wednesday in a post on X, responding to a Politico report that cited Democratic lawmakers seeking to investigate him.
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"Those who pick fights with me should understand that I will find out who is really pulling the strings and come for them, not just their puppets," said Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX.
Musk's battle-ready stance comes as a host of Democrats have said they are eager to wield the power of their office to investigate the world's richest person should they win either chamber in the midterms.
As Republicans' election prospects have soured, lawmakers are building momentum for probes looking into the tech mogul, his companies or the work of the U.S. DOGE Service, which Musk oversaw and which was instrumental in dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Connecticut), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said in an interview Thursday that he would investigate Musk and DOGE if Democrats win. Blumenthal led inquiries relating to the cost-cutting group but was in the minority and did not have subpoena power, which could be used to compel the attendance of witnesses, as well as the production of documents and records.
"The American people have a right to know the cost, the consequences and the chaos resulting from DOGE and … what he may be concealing," Blumenthal said. "There is
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Oct 23, 2026
The Trump administration aims to stop Alaska from certifying the Senate race result if Republican Senator Dan Sullivan loses to Democrat Mary Peltola and votes for another candidate named Dan Sullivan could have changed the outcome.
A lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday against the state of Alaska and various election officials alleges that the Republican candidate listed on the ballot as Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. entered the race intending to mislead voters into backing him instead of the incumbent with the same name.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly accused Democrats of planting Dan J. Sullivan, a retired teacher, to confuse Alaska voters. In a social media post earlier this week, Trump—who has endorsed the incumbent—called his presence on the ballot a "scam" that could threaten Senator Dan Sullivan's potential victory in what has become one of the closest Senate contests this year.
"Even 1, 2, or 3 percent could make the difference," the president wrote. "Dan S. Sullivan is leading by a lot, but this is CHEATING in an Election, and the Judge that allowed this to happen should be ashamed of himself."
Senator Dan Sullivan is currently 2.7 points behind Peltola, according to VoteHub's poll tracker, underscoring how potentially consequential even a small number of votes could be.
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Oct 23, 2026
HEBRON, West Bank (AP) — Israeli soldiers shot and killed two Palestinians who the military said had launched an attack near Hebron in the occupied West Bank on Friday morning. At least five other people were injured, some critically.
The violence is likely to heighten political tensions and security concerns ahead of Israel's parliamentary election next week.
The army said it had prevented a "terror attack against Israeli civilians" and that the two men, both Palestinians from Hebron, were armed with an M16 rifle and a handgun. It did not identify the target of the alleged attack or those injured.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office later said it had instructed security forces to immediately cordon off Hebron and prepare for a full closure of the West Bank starting Friday.
Voters go to the polls Tuesday in an election that will help determine whether Netanyahu secures another term as prime minister. The vote comes three years after the Hamas-led attacks on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Israel's government has warned of potential attacks by the country's "enemies" in the lead-up to the election.
Netanyahu holds an emergency meeting
Following the shooting, Netanyahu held an emergency meeting of his Security Cabinet and officials from top military and security agencies. He said Hamas was "planning a major attack aimed at murdering innocent civilians."
"Our brave soldiers thwarted this attack with courage and determination," he said, without elaborating on what the planned attack entailed.
"I commend them for their actions and wish our wounde
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Oct 23, 2026
JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli army says two soldiers were killed in an attack in the occupied West Bank on Friday morning that also left two suspected gunmen dead in violence that is likely to heighten political tensions and security concerns ahead of Israel's parliamentary election next week.
The army said two soldiers, Staff Sgt. Ron Yonatan Roytman and Sgt. Yuval Shai Svilem, were killed and three others were lightly wounded during an attack by Palestinian gunmen. The attack took place near the Yehuda Junction outside the West Bank city of Hebron.
The army said it had prevented a "terror attack against Israeli civilians" and that the two suspects, both Palestinians from Hebron, were armed with an M16 rifle and a handgun.
It said the men arrived at an Israeli military position in the morning, triggering an exchange of fire lasting approximately 20 minutes, after which the gunmen were killed by Israeli troops. The army said its forces prevented the men from advancing further where the attack could have resulted in civilian casualties.
The military set up roadblocks and closures in Palestinian towns in the area.
Israeli voters will decide next Tuesday whether to grant Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yet another term as prime minister — or usher in a new era of Israeli politics. The election comes three years after the Hamas-led attacks on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Israel's government has warned of potential attacks by the country's "enemies" in the lead-up to the election.
Netanyahu holds an emergency meeting
Netanyahu's office said it had instructed security f
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Oct 22, 2026
President Donald Trump's brand of brash, sometimes offensive, politics has consumed the Republican Party for a decade. But bipartisan outrage over Vivek Ramaswamy's ad featuring his opponent's estranged mother shows how candidates often fail when they try to embody the president's bombast.
Ramaswamy, an Ohio Republican running for governor against Democrat Amy Acton, a former public health official, gained national prominence as the 2024 presidential candidate who sought to mimic Trump's brand of shock-jock politics, confronting his rivals in public and working the sidelines of social media to rile and excite supporters.
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Ramaswamy's newest ad features Acton's mother calling her a "liar," even as documents show that Acton and her brother were removed from her home as children after her stepfather was charged with raping Acton.
Political operatives in both parties called the ad an extension of Trump's no-holds-barred politics that catapulted him to the presidency in 2016. Trump's rise was fueled by a Republican ecosystem - much of it online - that has been increasingly shaped in his image over the past decade.
And Trump defended Ramaswamy in an online post on Thursday, calling the ad "very powerful" and writing that criticism is meant only to "damage, demean, and embarrass a Republican."
"I told him leave it up and look upstairs and say 'thank you, God, very much, I appreciate it,'" Trump said at a rally in Iowa on Thursday night, recounting a conversation he said he
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Oct 22, 2026
Washington — President Trump on Thursday praised the "very powerful ad" Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is running featuring the estranged mother of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton, after the ad drew pushback from some Republicans like Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine.
Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social that he suggested Ramaswamy keep the ad up, saying the press is "trying to convince everyone that this Ad is bad, because it's so good!"
The ad, which first circulated on social media on Monday and is now television, features Acton's estranged mother, Donna Arthur, who called Acton a "liar" and sought to undermine her credibility. Acton's campaign condemned the ad, and her brother, Philip Stearns, called it a "despicable low."
According to court documents provided by the campaign, Arthur's now-deceased husband was charged with raping Acton, which she said occurred when she was between 10 and 12 years old. He entered a not guilty plea and left the area while out on bond; the case never went to trial.
DeWine on Thursday said he thought the Ramaswamy campaign should take the ad down. "It's wrong to run this ad," the Ohio Republican told reporters. "I would urge Ramaswamy's campaign to take this down." DeWine did not rescind his endorsement.
But Vice President JD Vance and now Mr. Trump are defending the ad and using it to criticize Acton.
"Vivek Ramaswamy put up a very powerful Ad about a mother saying that her daughter, Amy Acton, who is running for Governor of Ohio, is a liar, and much worse," Mr. Trump wrote in his social media post. "The Press, in a concerted an
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Oct 22, 2026
Washington — President Trump on Thursday praised the "very powerful ad" Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is running featuring the estranged mother of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton, after the ad drew pushback from some Republicans like Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine.
Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social that he suggested Ramaswamy keep the ad up, saying the press is "trying to convince everyone that this Ad is bad, because it's so good!"
The ad, which first circulated on social media on Monday and is now television, features Acton's estranged mother, Donna Arthur, who called Acton a "liar" and sought to undermine her credibility. Acton's campaign condemned the ad, and her brother, Philip Stearns, called it a "despicable low."
According to court documents provided by the campaign, Arthur's now-deceased husband was charged with raping Acton, which she said occurred when she was between 10 and 12 years old. He entered a not guilty plea and left the area while out on bond; the case never went to trial.
DeWine on Thursday said he thought the Ramaswamy campaign should take the ad down. "It's wrong to run this ad," the Ohio Republican told reporters. "I would urge Ramaswamy's campaign to take this down." DeWine did not rescind his endorsement.
But Vice President JD Vance and now Mr. Trump are defending the ad and using it to criticize Acton.
"Vivek Ramaswamy put up a very powerful Ad about a mother saying that her daughter, Amy Acton, who is running for Governor of Ohio, is a liar, and much worse," Mr. Trump wrote in his social media post. "The Press, in a concerted an
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Oct 22, 2026
Attorney General Todd Blanche left the door open on whether the Department of Justice (DOJ) would intervene in states' midterm elections verification processes, telling reporters Thursday there are hypothetical "scenarios" in which it could block the certification of votes.
"Yes, of course there's scenarios that we can all come up with hypothetically, you know, some doomsday scenario for example, right?" he said. "So, I don't think it's proper to make any kind of conclusory statements about what's going to happen in the future, because I have no idea what's happening in the future."
Blanche added the DOJ has no intention "to improperly interfere with elections or the state confirmation process or certification process."
"There's no circumstances that we would ever do that," he continued. "Of course I'm not going to say that. But am I planning my days around the election to be somewhere to not certify? Of course not, no, not at all."
Blanche said earlier this month the DOJ plans to send 1,000 election monitors to polling places in every state on Election Day. At the time, he told Fox News anchor Shannon Bream the department's presence would serve to ensure federal law is properly enforced, adding the government has been monitoring elections since the 1960s.
During the Fox interview, Blanche went on to accuse Democrats of "fearmongering" by claiming the DOJ is trying to intimidate vo
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Oct 22, 2026
With the Trump administration signaling that work on the triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery could begin two weeks from Thursday, opponents of the project urged a federal judge to issue an order blocking the construction unless it is authorized by lawmakers.
The request for a preliminary injunction comes a day after the Justice Department filed notice with a federal judge indicating that construction on the arch could begin on Nov. 5, immediately after the National Capital Planning Commission is set to grant its final approval of the project.
Judge Tanya Chutkan had previously ordered that the government must give at least 14 days' notice before starting work on the arch. Wednesday's notice would keep with that timeframe.
Harrison Design/U.S. Commission of Fine Arts - PHOTO: A rendering of the ‘triumphal arch," that the Trump administration is planning to build near Arlington National Cemetery.The Vietnam-era veterans who have brought a lawsuit against the arch asked Chutkan to step in so that the administration can't "render the arch a fait accompli before this Court has made a final determination whether Defendants' project is unlawful."
Triumphal Arch final plans submitted by Interior Department to National Capital Planning CommissionThe veterans' filing accuses the administration of having "barreled ahead, doing site testing, drawing architectural plans, and seeking approvals from commissions populated by friends of the
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Oct 22, 2026
An aerial view of scorched grass in London, the UK, on August 11, 2026. - Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
More than 50,000 people are estimated to have died across Europe's cities during the brutal heat waves that roiled the continent this summer — making this year's heat the region's deadliest on record, according to a new analysis.
About two-thirds of the deaths, more than 32,600, are directly attributed to climate change, driven by fossil fuel pollution, according to the findings, published in two peer-reviewed papers in the journal Nature Health.
"I think we can be quite confident in stating that the summer of 2026 is likely to have been the worst on record for heat-related mortality across much of Europe," said Clair Barnes, an author on the reports and an extreme weather and climate change researcher at Imperial College London.
This stark death toll is revealed just weeks before international leaders gather in Turkey for the annual UN climate talks, and days after a UN report warned the world's chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels has now vanished.
"We're well off-track to limit the worst consequences of climate change, and governments need to realize that witho
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Oct 22, 2026
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court said New Hampshire can fully enforce a ban on voters using student IDs as a form of identification at the polls next month, a win for the Republican Party's effort to tighten voting procedures.
The court on Oct. 22 agreed to pause a lower court's ruling that a student ID is among the forms of identification that may be considered by poll workers if the voter lacks an approved government-issued ID.
The state's U.S. Senate race is among the contests that will decide whether Republicans keep control of that chamber after the midterm elections. The Republican National Committee had backed the state's unsuccessful emergency appeal to the Supreme Court.
New Hampshire, controlled by Republicans, is among several states that have banned registered voters from using a student ID to verify their identity at the polls. A voting-rights group challenged the change as discrimination against younger voters and as an unconstitutional burden on their right to vote.
A federal judge in New Hampshire declined to block enforcement of the law as the case is litigated.
But the judge also said the new law had not changed the fact that a poll worker may accept or reject a student ID as a valid form of identification on a case-by-case basis through the state's "safety-valve" provision.
New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
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Oct 22, 2026
WASHINGTON (AP) — A first-of-its-kind cancer vaccine is significantly reducing the chances that melanoma patients' tumors come back, according to results of a major study released Thursday by drugmakers Moderna and Merck.
The vaccine was custom-brewed for each patient to match their tumor. Adding it to a standard post-surgery treatment reduced by 42% the risk of melanoma returning two years after surgery, according to the most advanced study to date of this new strategy for fighting cancer.
"The field has been looking for a win and I think this one is a big one," said Dr. Hussein Tawbi of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, one of the researchers in the international study.
The vaccine, called intismeran, is made with the same Nobel Prize-winning mRNA technology that was behind COVID-19 vaccines. Experimental personalized cancer vaccines made with mRNA and some other approaches also are being tested against other types of cancer including lung, kidney and pancreatic.
Experts not involved with the new study say its success bolsters the field.
"This is a new frontier," said Karen Knudsen, CEO of the Parker Institute, which helps fund cancer immunotherapy research.
"It's a big step forward for science, for oncology, because this vaccine will apply to many different cancers," said Dr. Michael Atkins, deputy director of Georgetown University's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Moderna and Merck had announced in August that the late-stage trial of intismeran was successful but the detailed results were set to be released Saturday at a meeting of the European Society of Medical Oncolog
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Oct 22, 2026
When it comes to picking senators, no state is nearly as consistent as Kansas. The last Democrat to win there, a former county attorney named George McGill, was elected in 1932. Kansas's other senator, a Republican incumbent, won reelection in 1936. McGill lost to a Republican in 1938. And Kansas has been sending Republicans to the U.S. Senate ever since.
That's a 90-year winning streak.
But the composition of Kansas's Senate delegation could change on Nov. 3 — and with it, Republican control of the chamber as a whole. To the surprise of pretty much the entire political world, first-term GOP incumbent Roger Marshall is currently locked in a too-close-to-call contest with megachurch-pastor-turned-rookie-candidate Adam Hamilton — a former Republican who considered running as an independent before deciding to seek the Sunflower State's Democratic nomination.
Hamilton, 61, is one of several heartland Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents who are giving Senate Republicans a run for their money in ruby-red states that President Trump won by double-digit margins in 2024 (including Texas, Iowa, Nebraska and even South Carolina). He describes himself as "a liberal conservative and a
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Oct 22, 2026
Calley Means, senior advisor at Health and Human Services (HHS) and co-founder of TrueMed, at the Semafor World Economy Summit during the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Spring meetings in Washington, D.C., on April 25, 2025. —Kent Nishimura—Bloomberg/Getty ImagesCalley Means, one of the key figures in the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, said on Thursday that he was stepping down from his role as a senior health adviser in the Trump Administration.
In a post on X, Means said that he was resigning "with tremendous respect" for President Donald Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
"They laid out a vision of combatting the entrenched, dark forces in DC that profit from Americans getting sick," Means said. "More policy and cultural change has happened around these goals in the past 2 years than any time in history—and I know this movement is just getting started."
News outlets including the New York Times and POLITICO, citing anonymous sources with knowledge of the situation, have reported that Means was becoming increasingly frustrated because he felt that there was little movement on issues central to the MAHA agenda—for instance, on the issue of defining and regulating ultraprocessed foods.
Means, who was pivotal in coordinating an alliance between Kennedy and Trump during the 2024 election cycle, has championed the
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Oct 22, 2026
Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has made a deal with the firm's board allowing him to sell or transfer up to 20% of the company's new Class C stock so that his voting majority doesn't decrease even if he has to pay the billionaire tax. (Nic Coury / Associated Press )Meta's Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has wielded enormous power over the social media empire he built more than two decades ago, leading the California juggernaut through major scandals, scrutiny and technological shifts.
But the 42-year-old tech mogul considered leaving the state because he feared that a ballot measure to impose a one-time 5% tax on the assets of California billionaires could reduce the amount of control he has over Meta, a recent regulatory filing shows. Meta's board struck a deal so he would stay in California. Meta is the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
The filing highlights how one of the world's wealthiest people, whose net worth totals more than $200 billion, is bracing for the possibility that California voters pass Proposition 40, a wealth tax proposal that would primarily be used to fund healthcare.
Although supporters say the fear that billionaires will flee the state are overblown, the ultrawealthy have made moves to potentially avoid paying the tax or are funding campaigns to defeat it.
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Oct 22, 2026
A New York tradition more than a century old is ending.
The New York City Council on Oct. 22 voted to ban horse-drawn carriages, winding down a historic tradition that's popular among tourists and fiercely opposed by animal rights groups.
In a 40-7 vote, the council approved a ban that will phase out the operation of horse carriages that are in and around Central Park by June 2028.
"Today's historic vote marks our commitment to animal welfare, public safety, and protecting workers," council speaker Julie Menin said in a statement.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani supports the bill and is expected to sign it into law. In early October, he declared that the horse carriage industry is "coming to an end in New York City."
The city's horse carriages have traversed a loop in Central Park dating back to the 1800s. By the mid-20th century, the city limited horse-drawn carriage licenses to 68. Over the decades, the carriages became a tourism staple and appeared in iconic films and television shows, such as "Sex and the City," "Elf" and "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York."
But in recent years, animal rights groups and others have increasingly called for the end to the tradition, arguing that the practice subjects horses to harsh unnatural conditions and physical exhaustion
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Oct 22, 2026
The California billionaire tax, Proposition 40, is finally coming to a vote on Nov. 3. The measure would levy a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of the state's billionaires. Two competing initiatives on the same ballot, Props 41 and 42, are backed by opponents of the tax, including billionaires.
If either garners more yes votes than Prop 40, it could keep the tax from taking effect.
The labor union Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (SEIU-UHW) is spearheading the campaign for the tax on the state's ultra-wealthy to prevent hospital and clinic closures, protect healthcare jobs, and help fund K-14 public education and state food assistance programs.
Opponents, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, say the tax would fuel an exodus of wealthy company founders and investors, spark job losses, and further weaken California's economy.
Read more: How billionaires get away with paying less tax
What is the billionaire's tax?Prop 40 would levy a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of billionaire state residents, subject to the asset restrictions noted below. Taxpayers could choose to pay the tax in five annual installments, with a 7.5% annual deferral charge on the unpaid balance.
Who would pay?
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Oct 22, 2026
Corey Lewandowski speaks to the press in July 2024..(Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images) - Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Justice Department prosecutors are investigating allegations of contract misconduct at the Department of Homeland Security, including the role of Corey Lewandowski who worked as de facto chief of staff to former Secretary Kristi Noem, according to multiple people familiar with the investigation.
The probe follows a criminal referral for Lewandowski from the DHS Inspector General's office, which has been examining contracting practices at the agency during Noem's and Lewandowski's tenure, according to one of the people familiar.
The Justice Department declined to comment on the matter.
"Mr. Lewandowski has not been contacted by the Justice Department regarding any investigation, and he denies any wrongdoing when he was proudly serving his country in a voluntary capacity," Lewandowski's attorney Adam Trigg told CNN.
The Department of Homeland Security didn't immediately return a request for comment on the matter.
The referral is an unusual move for the Trump administration, which has been hesitant to criminally investigate its own members.
Critics have instead largely accused the Justice Department of improperly targeting the president's political enemies and accused DHS of protecting their own employees from scrutiny.
In recent months, as the allegations of possible corruption emerged, Washington, DC, US Att
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Oct 22, 2026
Holiday hiring is heating up with multiple companies saying they are adding temporary workers in the coming months, ahead of the holiday shopping season.
Amazon announced it is looking to fill 300,000 seasonal part-time and full-time roles across their national support operations during the holidays -- an increase of 50,000 positions compared to the same period in 2025. Seasonal employees will earn an average rate of about $20 an hour.
Shipping company UPS said it will hire 100,000 workers in the next few months, noting that many applicants can get a job offer in less than 7 minutes.
John Minchillo/AP - PHOTO: A UPS employee unloads a truck before making deliveries, June 29, 2023, in New York. Spirit Halloween, the largest Halloween retailer in the U.S., said it plans to employ a record 52,000 associates at store locations.
Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images - PHOTO: The "Jack The Reaper" logo displayed in the windows of a Spirit Halloween seasonal holiday store in the location, August 26, 2024 in Los Angeles.Poultry company Butterball, famous for their turkey hotline, also said they are hiring their largest team on record to handle calls coming into their
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Oct 22, 2026
The Israeli Defense Forces and the United States military have drawn up plans to renew joint strikes on Iran in the coming weeks, according to two Israeli sources familiar with the plans.
The Israeli sources said the strikes would almost certainly take place after the U.S. midterm elections, citing President Donald Trump's reluctance to further destabilize oil markets in the final days of the campaign.
The White House said Thursday that the U.S. will not resume attacks on Iran before the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
US Navy - PHOTO: U.S. Navy Command Master Chief John Shubert, assigned to Airborne Command and Control Squadron (VAW) 115, conducts leadership training aboard Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, Oct. 20, 2026. "The United States will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the midterm elections," White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement to ABC News.
Iran live updates"Hunting season is open as soon as the elections end and it's obvious that they're not going to wait long," one Israeli source said.
The New York Times was first to report on the planning.
Asked about the Times' reporting, a White House official said the administration does not comment on "sensitive military plans that may or may not exist."
The official added that Trump "keeps all options on the table" to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
The Pentagon declined to comment.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is firmly in favor of renewed action against Iran, but both sources said the decision for joint strikes to resume is "only for Trump to decide."
One Israeli
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Oct 22, 2026
Former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt acknowledged Thursday that her successor Katie Zacharia, who stepped down after less than a week as press secretary, was not a good fit for the job.
"Look, White House press secretary is a tough job. I know that because I did it," Leavitt said in an interview with Fox News Digital.
"Many people say it's one of the hardest jobs in politics. It takes a lot of preparation. Sometimes you don't know how someone will perform until they go out there," she continued. "As the president said, we wish Katie the best. The job obviously was not for her."
Leavitt said Trump is continuing his search for potential candidates, and she has offered to assist the president in finding a replacement.
"I do obviously talk to him about what the job entails, and he knows it very well. Nobody understands the press better than Donald Trump. He knows that he needs someone who is tough, who is smart, who understands his policies, who is loyal and can go out there and put up a fight," she said.
Leavitt served as press secretary from the beginning of the second Trump administration in January 2025 until this August, saying she wanted to spend more time with her family.
Prior to serving as White House press secretary, Leavitt worked as press secretary on Trump's 2024 presidential campaign. Despite her exit from the White House, Leavitt is still seen as a close confidant of Trump's.
Leavitt's comments came after Zacharia left the role after only five days on the job earlier this month.
Zacharia's departure followed intense scrutiny over a shaky first press
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Oct 22, 2026
By Andrew Hay
Oct 22 (Reuters) - The University of Arizona has suspended a fraternity after a female student ?alleged she was raped at its house by two ?men, the latest action taken by a major US university against a Greek ?chapter over accusations of sexual assault.
The university suspended Sigma Phi Epsilon, which was already on probation for hazing new members, on Wednesday after the KOLD-TV station reported the allegations of a female ?student who said she ?was raped at the chapter's fraternity house in Tucson. The university said it was investigating.
"It ?has been determined that your organization presents a substantial risk to members of the university community," Whitney Mohr, associate dean of students, ?said ?in a letter to the ?fraternity.
The female student told police ?she was at the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity house with friends and residents of the chapter around midnight on August 26 when she woke up in a dark room being sexually assaulted by two men, according to the September ?police report published by KOLD-TV.
The Sigma ?Phi Epsilon chapter and its national ?organization did not ?immediately respond to requests for comment.
US universities have ?come under growing pressure to ?crack down on ?misconduct following allegations of sexual assault by fraternity members at Cornell University.
Earlier this month, the University of Arizona suspended ?all fraternity activities ?during investigations into alleged hazing, physical assault and drug ?and alcohol violations.
(Reporting by Andrew Hay in New ?Mexico; editing by David Gaffen)
This article originally appeared on Reuters at https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/arizona-university-suspends-fraternity-rape-161205125.html
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Oct 22, 2026
(Warning: This article contains graphic descriptions of an alleged sexual assault.)
Utah defensive tackle Jamal Wallace has not been with the team because of a suspension following a rape allegation against him.
Wallace was arrested on Oct. 11 on five counts of distribution of an intimate image after a woman he was dating alleged that he had raped her. The school said in a statement Wednesday that it was "made aware of the situation with Jamal Wallace on Oct. 11 and he was immediately placed on indefinite suspension from the program."
Per the probable cause statement obtained by KSL, the woman said that Wallace forced her to perform oral sex after they were discussion their relationship and infidelity. An investigation into the rape accusation is ongoing.
The woman said she continued to try to "flinch" and "pull away," but he continued to keep her there before he left the room. She said she was "frozen" during the incident and "thought if she just let it happen, it wouldn't last that long."
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Oct 22, 2026
A new campaign ad in which the estranged mother of Ohio gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton argues that her daughter should not be elected as the Buckeye State's next governor has added a new level of controversy to what was already one of the most closely watched races of the midterms.
Acton, a Democrat, is running to replace outgoing Republican Gov. Mike DeWine. She's facing Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, a billionaire who ran an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2024.
In the ad, Acton's mother, Donna Arthur, calls her daughter a "liar" and urges Ohioans not to support her.
"Don't let her become your governor," she says. "If you think she'll make your life better, you're fooling yourself. It will only get worse."
As the ad began to spread across social media, Acton's brother released a statement in which he accused Arthur of siding with their stepfather after he was charged with sexually abusing Acton when she was a child, and criticized Ramaswamy for attempting to use the alleged abuse as a "political talking point."
Ramaswamy defended the ad on Tuesday, telling reporters that Acton's account of her past "does deserve to be scrutinized." His campaign confirmed to the Enquirer that it will spend $4 million to air the ad across the
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Oct 22, 2026
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Scientists doubling as art detectives have traced Vincent van Gogh's " The Starry Night " to a celestial scene that suggests a new date for one of the world's most famous paintings.
Their findings indicate that rather than being a product of van Gogh's imagination, "The Starry Night" may have been inspired by what he saw as he gazed heavenward from his French asylum 137 years ago.
A South Korean team reported Thursday that after years of forensic astronomy and research into the Dutch artist, they have matched his masterpiece to a predawn sky over France's Saint-Remy de Provence right around July 22, 1889.
That's a month later than the long-accepted time frame for the postimpressionist painting depicting a crescent moon and Venus surrounded by a sky of swirling stars with a village nestled below and cypress trees looming on one side.
Art historians have long dated the painting to June 1889, soon after Van Gogh checked into the asylum. He'd cut off his left ear several months earlier during an argument with painter Paul Gauguin.
A team led by Elijah Jeong-hyun Kim, the CEO of a Seoul telescope maker, is now disputing that date in a study appearing in the journal Scientific Reports.
The sky that is most similar to the painting occurred around July 22, 1889, said Kim, who is also a doctoral candidate at Kyung Hee University. He noted that the few days before and after could have inspired v
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Oct 22, 2026
MIAMI (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday ordered President Donald Trump to sit for a deposition in his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC by Dec. 11.
The order from U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett came as lawyers for the British broadcaster complained that Trump had delayed his appearance. Charles Tobin, the attorney for the BBC, said that with two months left in the discovery period, "we still haven't been able to depose the plaintiff."
He noted there was an agreed-upon date of Oct. 16, but that Trump had canceled it for a "matter of national importance." Tobin said the Republican president was in fact campaigning in Georgia that day.
"He was participating in party politics and prioritized that over sitting for the deposition," Tobin said.
Lett said Trump must sit for a deposition by Dec. 11, or face sanctions up to dismissal of his lawsuit -- unless the discovery period was extended past Dec. 18.
Discovery, where lawyers for both sides exchange documents and other evidence, is scheduled to end Dec. 18, and the BBC's attorneys want to make sure they have Trump's deposition before that deadline. Lett said only the presiding judge assigned to the case can alter the trial schedule, and the defense said it would be open to scheduling the deposition at a later time if the trial schedule was also moved back.
Trump, who has often avoided depositions, filed his lawsuit against the BBC last December. He accused the pub
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Oct 22, 2026
A federal judge on Wednesday restricted the Department of Homeland Security from election-related investigations in nine states, finding that error-prone government lists could sweep U.S. citizens into the effort.
Heading into the midterm elections, DHS has launched a wide-ranging effort to track down noncitizens it suspects of voting or registering to vote.
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U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín barred DHS from relying solely on records generated through its voter-matching program for field operations involving people it knows, suspects or should reasonably suspect are U.S. citizens.
The judge put her order on hold until 5 p.m. Friday, giving President Donald Trump's administration time to appeal. DHS and Justice Department officials did not immediately comment.
Her ruling applies to the nine states where DHS has focused its operations on voting issues: California, Connecticut, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington and Wisconsin.
DHS built target lists from records on tens of millions of voters from official state voter rolls, commercial voter files and lists of 48.2 million voters that the judge deemed to have "questionable provenance." The agency used artificial intelligence tools to enhance that data to find suspected noncitizens, who are ineligible to vote in federal elections.
During the agency's surge of investigations, DHS personnel were ordered to complete at least 40 reviews and had no more than 12 minutes to clear someone from the target list using commercial databases, the judge wrote. She found a high likelihood of error, in part because no federal database definitively captures
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Oct 22, 2026
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas, one of the state's most powerful Democrats, was charged on Thursday in connection with what federal authorities alleged was a role leading a criminal enterprise that acquired and distributed large quantities of marijuana and laundered the proceeds.
An indictment unsealed on Thursday charged Lucas and six other defendants, including several of her relatives, the Department of Justice said in a statement. Lucas surrendered, a department spokesperson said.
The charges, including drug trafficking and money laundering, came after the FBI searched Lucas' hometown office and a cannabis shop in which she has a stake in May. At the time of the search, Lucas — who has been a vocal critic of Republican President Donald Trump's administration — characterized it as an attempt to intimidate her.
"This is the circus we always expected it to be, and we will wait for further details to have a more specific response," said Brian Woolfolk, chief counsel for the L. Louise Lucas Legal Defense Fund.
Lucas says she won't be bullied by the federal government
A statement attributed to Lucas posted on her social media account did not directly address the substance of the charges but said Thursday's actions amounted to the federal government wielding its "full weight" against a great-grandmother.
"I will not be intimidated. I will not be bullied. And I will not back down," Lucas said in the statement.
The brash 82-year-old lawmaker has spent decades ascending the ranks of Virginia politics and has served since 1992 in the state Senate, where she is the president pro tempore, overseeing the chamber
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Oct 22, 2026
Two teenage girls have been arrested on conspiracy to commit murder charges after police said they plotted for months to commit a shooting at a Southern California high school.
The teens, both 15 years old, planned to carry out the shooting at Corona High School, according to police in Corona, California, a city of about 160,000 residents in Riverside County, about 50 miles from downtown Los Angeles.
The Corona Police Department said that it first learned of the threat on Oct. 6 from the FBI, which identified concerning communications on social media about a possible school threat to Corona High School. The investigation led to the "immediate" arrest of one suspect, a student at Corona High School, police said in a statement on Oct. 20.
Police executed search warrants at several residences and identified a second 15-year-old suspect, a student at nearby Norco High School, the statement said. She was also arrested. The Norco student had previously attended Corona High School, the Corona-Norco Unified School District said in a statement.
"The evidence obtained showed the two suspects had spent several months researching school shooting
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Oct 22, 2026
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Behind a wire fence lies a vast gaping wound of earth. Before Google's arrival a few months ago, an estimated quarter of a million trees occupied the 330 hectares (815 acres) of forest near the town of Muhos in rural northern Finland. Now they are all gone.
After the tech company illegally stripped the entire area to build a datacentre - taking even the top soil with it - all that remains is a vast expanse of mud indented with the trail marks of machinery, puddles and mounds of earth, roots and branches. Residents say that brown water flowing off the site is going into a stream that feeds the Oulujoki River.
"It doesn't end. It goes on and on," says Mari Annala, an ecologist from the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation (SLL), looking at drone footage of the former forest from the perimeter.
With 145 new datacentres at various stages of planning, Finland has found itself at the forefront of the tech companies' latest push. As well as its relative geopolitical and geological stability and abundance of land, the cool climate makes it especially attractive for saving on energy costs.
Interactive
Earlier this month, Google was ordered by the Finnish Licensing and Supervision Authority (LVV) to temporarily stop work on Muhos and another site about 100km south-east in the village of Otanmäki after it failed to complete the necessary environmental impact assessments before clearcutting the land. The news has prompted widespread outcry and a national reckoning over what role, if any, the country should play in the global rush to build datacentres to keep up with rapid AI development.
Last week, Google's Finland country manager, Antti Järvinen, apologised for the forest clearings but claimed the company had acted "on the best understanding we had of the legisla
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Oct 22, 2026
Weakening demand for U.S. travel is prompting Canadian airlines to cut flights south of the border, with Air Canada canceling five routes for 2027.
Data from aviation data and analytics company Cirium shows that the airline, Canada's flag carrier and the largest in the country by fleet size and passenger volume, has cut its flights from Montréal to Seattle, Toronto to Boston and Charleston, and Vancouver to Nashville and Raleigh-Durham.
The service between Toronto and Charleston, which the company started in March 2024, was the only Air Canada flight bringing Canadian snowbirds to South Carolina, one of the most popular U.S. states for their neighbors' winter escapes.
An Air Canada Rouge Boeing 737 MAX 8 approaches Los Angeles International Airport during a flight from Vancouver on September 18, 2026.These are the routes to U.S. destinations canceled by Air Canada next year:
Montréal-Trudeau International Airport (YUL) to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA); Billy Bishop Toronto City Centre Airport (YTZ) to Boston Logan International Airport (BOS);Vancouver International Airport (YVR) to Nashville International Airport (BNA);Vancouver International Airport (YVR) to Raleigh-Durham International Airport (RDU);Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ) to Charleston International Airport (CHS).According to aviation website SimpleFlying, three of the routes were already suspended—fr
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Oct 22, 2026
Top Trump administration officials are starting to point fingers squarely at SpaceX founder Elon Musk for the decision to slow down his company's Starlink satellite internet services and its military counterpart Starshield for Ukraine, which has been muddled in uncertainty over the culprit.
Looking to deflect the controversial move — which was swiftly admonished by powerful congressional Republicans and Democrats — Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said Ukraine's access to Starlink was up to Musk and not the White House.
"The bottom ?line is that that is governed by a private commercial contract as to how their stuff can be used and what speeds they'll allow it to be used at," Rubio told reporters while traveling to India.
And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, speaking to reporters on Tuesday, suggested Starlink's slowdown was a commercial matter and not a result of any orders from the White House.
"There are terms of service that ultimately need to be complied to, and that's where Starlink has the option to make those decisions," Hegseth said.
Taken together, the comments are a change of tune from President Trump's original assertions last week that neither he nor Musk was responsible for the disruption. Rubio also on Saturday had insisted that no one ordered the slowdown.
The about-face comes after The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Musk ordered
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Oct 22, 2026
The national flag of Iran hangs on a building damaged by the U.S.-Israeli attacks in Tehran, Iran, on April 20, 2026. —Shadati—Xinhua/Getty ImagesThe U.S. and Israel are reportedly developing plans for major strikes on Iran after the U.S. midterm elections in November.
Citing people familiar with the deliberations, the New York Times reported on Wednesday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth discussed the possibility of renewed strikes on Iran with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel this week. Possible targets of the strikes reportedly include Iran's energy infrastructure, nuclear facilities, and missile and drone arsenal. TIME has reached out to the White House for comment.
U.S. officials have repeatedly asserted that the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are teetering on the edge of collapse but are deliberately prolonging the war in an effort to meddle with Republican prospects in the midterm elections. Once the elections are over, President Donald Trump promised last month, the Iranian regime would quickly capitulate.
"I think the war is going to end immediately after the election," Trump said. "They can't hold out any longer."
Renewed strikes could complicate that outlook.
Some officials have reportedly argued that resuming attacks for an intense but limited campaign would hasten Iran's economic collapse, especially as the country has been
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Oct 22, 2026
Earnings season is in full swing, and Big Tech earnings calls are about more than the heavy use of "superintelligence," which some read as a bid to please the White House after it reportedly disliked the term "artificial intelligence."
Here are three moments from the Tesla (TSLA), Meta (META) and IBM (IBM) earnings calls late Wednesday that stuck with us.
TeslaMuch of the focus today is on Tesla cutting its capital spending plans for this year to $20 billion from the $25 billion it guided to three months ago. A key factor appears to be that its Optimus robots need more training before they're released into the real world.
Elon Musk says investors should think of Optimus as a baby:
"A big difference with Optimus versus the cars is we don't have this vast fleet of cars from which we can gather training data. With Optimus, we have to bootstrap it by making the robots and having them do self-play, which is really how a human learns to navigate the world. You can see this when you have a toddler, and they grow
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Oct 22, 2026
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Seven oil tankers caught fire or were damaged in the Strait of Hormuz overnight after being hit by Iran or striking naval mines, Tehran said Thursday, a markedly high number as tensions rise over concerns about a return to all-out war.
With days before a close election in Israel in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could lose power, and before next month's U.S. midterm election in which war-linked high prices have sparked voter anger, there are concerns that U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran could resume.
"Netanyahu wants to attack Iran, that's not even a question," Danny Citrinowicz, a researcher at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies and a former Iran specialist in Israel's military and intelligence services, told The Associated Press.
He accused Israel of rushing into another round with Iran without revamping its strategy. A clear Netanyahu victory in the Oct. 27 election means an attack is almost guaranteed, he said.
Main opposition candidates are likely to focus on domestic issues first, but Citrinowicz said he believed the region is on the way toward "another kinetic escalation."
Iran repeats threat to attack U.S. bases in the region
Iranian state television reported the claims about the latest attacks on ships, which the AP couldn't independently confirm. The report cited the Revolutionary Guard Corps navy, which again threatened to strike U.S. military bases in the region if the U.S. keeps helping to guide commercial ships through the strait.
The report didn't mention casualties. Iran still asserts cont
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Oct 22, 2026
Security firm Calif found the flaws in August using OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Sol model (ANDREJ IVANOV)Governments and companies around the world shut down websites as they raced Thursday to protect themselves from hacks after artificial intelligence uncovered critical flaws in a widely used programming language called PHP.
PHP helps run about 70 percent of the world's websites -- from online stores and news outlets to government services -- according to Wiz Research, one of the cybersecurity firms that found the two flaws.
Created in the early 1990s, PHP originally stood for "personal home page" but now means "hypertext preprocessor" and sits underneath popular web design platforms.
"These findings rank among the most severe vulnerabilities discovered in PHP, and arguably in software history," a Wiz blog post said.
Increasingly powerful AI models can spot weak points in back-end computer code that have gone unnoticed by humans for years.
That has heightened cybersecurity fears, with the number of software vulnerabilities discovered worldwide in 2026 on track to roughly double last year's record total.
PHP programmers released a fix Wednesday, and the US National Security Agency told organizations to patch their sites immediately or pull vulnerable systems offline -- a call echoed by authorities from Japan to the European Union.
A platform affiliated with China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology urged the same, warning of "two critical remote code execution vulnerabilities with severe impact" in PHP.
Only sites that run PHP on their own servers are exposed. Many large platforms are built on other programming languages or use operators that could install the fix quickly and were able to stay online.
Rahat Masood, senior lecturer in c
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Oct 22, 2026
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian attacks on Ukraine's capital with ballistic missiles and drones overnight into Thursday killed one person and wounded 22, Ukrainian authorities said. The strikes in Kyiv came hours after the Kremlin agreed to restart U.S.-brokered talks aimed at ending the war.
The attack damaged homes, transportation infrastructure and other civilian sites in several districts of the city, Ukraine's State Emergency Service said. In the Dniprovskyi district, on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River, one person was killed and six were wounded, including a child, as fires broke out.
On Wednesday, Kremlin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said that Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed "in principle" to resume three-way negotiations involving Russia, the United States and Ukraine after Nov. 10, a week after the U.S. midterm election. Putin had met with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff in St. Petersburg.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy backed the push for new talks, but was cautious.
"We'll see what happens this time," he said shortly before missile alerts sounded over Kyiv.
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Follow the AP's coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
This article originally appeared on Associated Press at https://www.yahoo.com/news/world/articles/russia-pounds-ukraines-capital-kyiv-07124
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Oct 21, 2026
US Senate candidates Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, left, and Republican Mike Rogers shake hands after the debate on Wednesday, October 21, 2026, at WXYZ Channel 7 in Southfield, Michigan. - Robin Buckson/Pool/AP
Michigan and Kansas held some of the final major Senate debates of the 2026 midterm elections on Wednesday night. And they were a study in contrasts.
The Michigan Senate debate between Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers was bitterly personal and ferociously contested — as befits a contest that could decide the chamber's majority.
Each candidate had a simple task.
El-Sayed, the former executive director of the Detroit Health Department, needed to pin Rogers, a former congressman, to the deeply unpopular President Donald Trump and his economy — and to assuage questions from moderates about his politics.
Rogers is trying to win in a state currently run by Democrats while dragging Trump's historically low approval ratings behind him. His only hope is to disqualify El-Sayed as an acceptable senator in the eyes of voters.
The debate in Kansas was a little more genial, with less focus on Trump and plenty of focus on whether Democratic pastor Adam Hamilton would be too allied with the political left — from which he repeatedly sought to distance himself — to unseat GOP Sen. Roger Marshall. And Marshall, much more than Rogers, made a point of overtly appealing
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Oct 21, 2026
US Senate candidates Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, left, and Republican Mike Rogers shake hands after the debate on Wednesday, October 21, 2026, at WXYZ Channel 7 in Southfield, Michigan. - Robin Buckson/Pool/AP
Michigan and Kansas held some of the final major Senate debates of the 2026 midterm elections on Wednesday night. And they were a study in contrasts.
The Michigan Senate debate between Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers was bitterly personal and ferociously contested — as befits a contest that could decide the chamber's majority.
Each candidate had a simple task.
El-Sayed, the former executive director of the Detroit Health Department, needed to pin Rogers, a former congressman, to the deeply unpopular President Donald Trump and his economy — and to assuage questions from moderates about his politics.
Rogers is trying to win in a state currently run by Democrats while dragging Trump's historically low approval ratings behind him. His only hope is to disqualify El-Sayed as an acceptable senator in the eyes of voters.
The debate in Kansas was a little more genial, with less focus on Trump and plenty of focus on whether Democratic pastor Adam Hamilton would be too allied with the political left — from which he repeatedly sought to distance himself — to unseat GOP Sen. Roger Marshall. And Marshall, much more than Rogers, made a point of overtly appealing
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Oct 21, 2026
The second and final debate between Abdul El-Sayed and Mike Rogers in the race for Michigan's open U.S. Senate seat on Wednesday, Oct. 21 saw each playing to the hometown crowd in metro Detroit, attempting to score partisan points, expand their base and frame their opponent as a far different kind of candidate than he and his allies let on.
El-Sayed, Rogers claimed, engaged in "a pattern of deception" over his real aims.
"They are trying to distract you," El-Sayed said of Rogers and the Republican's arguments against him.
And so it went for an hour-long debate at WXYZ-TV's Southfield studios outside Detroit as El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee and former Wayne County and Detroit health director, sparred with Rogers, a former Republican congressman.
Here's a handful of takeaways from this debate ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm election.
More debating, less bickering
There was plenty of back-and-forth arguing and no dearth of personal attacks in this debate, but compared to the one 13 days previous at WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids, it was far more polite.
Yes, there were times when the moderators had to remind one or the other of the time constraints and cut them off. And yes, there were plenty of harangues and invective, true or not.
But it definitely didn't seem as chippy as the scene in west Michigan, as if both were a little more willing to keep from fighting after the bell.
Making a pitch for Detroit and Democrats
It seemed both were acutely aware that this deb
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Oct 21, 2026
By Carlos Méndez
Oct 21 (Reuters) - Meta Platforms has struck a deal with Mark Zuckerberg to keep him living in California after the CEO warned he was ?considering leaving the state that houses the company's headquarters if voters pass a ?wealth tax proposal next month.
Under the deal, Zuckerberg will get non-voting shares he can sell to potentially foot ?a multi-billion-dollar tax bill in the event the proposal is approved, in exchange for a commitment to remain a resident of California, or wherever Meta maintains its headquarters, for eight years, Meta said on Wednesday.
Zuckerberg, the world's sixth richest person according to Forbes, told Meta he was ?considering moving his primary residence ?outside California because Proposition 40, a ballot measure dubbed the "California wealth tax", could expose him to a massive tax liability, potentially forcing him to ?sell voting shares to pay it.
Proposition 40, which asks Californians whether to impose a one-time 5% tax on the state's billionaires, is far from certain to pass, political analysts say. The state ?is ?home to as many as 250 billionaires collectively ?worth upwards of $2 trillion.
Zuckerberg, who has ?a net worth of about $240 billion, can immediately sell 20% of the Class C shares he receives, representing 10% of his overall economic stake in the company, allowing him to pay a potential tax bill without losing voting control.
The company said on Wednesday it will issue a new class of non-voting Class C common stock in January 2027, effectively resulting ?in a two-for-one split, to fund acquisitions and ?retain top talent while maintaining Zuckerberg's control.
Meta's long-term forecasts, ?as described in the filing, showed ?it would need to raise "hundreds of billions of dollars" over several ?years, beginning as early as fall 2026, ?as it expects to ?need capital to finance its AI-related growth plan.
The parent of Facebook
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Oct 21, 2026
Vice President Vance defended GOP gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy amid bipartisan criticism of an ad that features the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent.
- Clipped From Video" data-uuid="a84bd7e5-2c40-3475-a1e7-78f1954bd6e5" height="540" src="https://media.zenfs.com/en/cnn_articles_875/e7ad9b4196e984c1679163122b2c2204.jpg" width="960"/Vice President Vance defended GOP gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy amid bipartisan criticism of an ad that features the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent.
- Clipped From Video
Some leading Ohio Republicans began distancing themselves from a controversial new ad from their gubernatorial nominee, Vivek Ramaswamy, even as Vice President JD Vance warned the party not to break ranks over the commercial.
"I would not have run that ad," Sen. Jon Husted, who is in one of the country's most competitive Senate races, said in a statement to the Associated Press published shortly after Husted appeared at a Cincinnati rally with Vance and Ramaswamy.
The Ramaswamy ad has drawn bipartisan criticism for featuring the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton.
In the video, Acton's mother called her daughter a liar and urged voters not to support her. Acton has said she has not seen her mother since she was about 12 years old, when the man her mother married sexually abused her and faced criminal charges.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose told the ABC affiliate in Columbus that he "probably wouldn't run an ad like that." LaRose is running for state auditor.
At least one other GOP candidate in Ohio personally asked Republican gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy not to air a controversial a
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Oct 21, 2026
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said she will have to move out of her apartment in Washington, D.C., because of threats she's received after federal agents executed a search warrant at her residence last week as part of an immigration fraud probe.
"Obviously, I can't continue to live there … Because our address has been public and with the death threats that I deal with, it's no longer going to be feasible to be in that house and have my kids visiting off and on, having people track them," she told MS NOW's Chris Hayes in a Wednesday interview.
The congresswoman, who also has a residence in her home state of Minnesota, told Hayes she woke up at 6 a.m. on Oct. 12 to learn federal agents had "surrounded her house" in D.C. She said the agents provided her a search warrant before going "room by room" and seizing 17 items, including her phone and other electronics.
President Trump and his administration have claimed that Omar's father lied about her age when she obtained U.S. citizenship in 2000 after their family emigrated from Somalia.
The Democratic lawmaker has denied these allegations and accused the Trump administration of waging a "campaign of political intimidation" against her in a social media post following the raid.
"If you had so confidently said I've committed a crime, why are you not saying in the beginning … we're going to subpoena people
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Oct 21, 2026
Wednesday was the first day since the shooting that students in the greater Bend-La Pine Schools district in Oregon returned to classes, although not at Silver Rail Elementary in Bend, where the shooting occurred. (Payton Bruni / AFP via Getty)A teacher who was shot by a teenage gunman in a Bend, Oregon, elementary school last week said she saw the attacker and tried to shut the classroom door, "but the shooter was already there."
Becky Drury said she was shot at close range in the rampage at Silver Rail Elementary School on Thursday.
"Lying on the floor, I saw that my left hand was almost completely severed from the gunshot, and my other arm was also severely injured," Drury said in a statement Wednesday.
"I could not get up, defend myself, or protect anyone else," she said. "So, I did the only thing I could do, which was to pretend to be dead in the hope he would not shoot me again."
Three children, ages 5, 8 and 11, and a 25-year-old teacher were killed in the attack, which began around 1 p.m., officials said.
The gunman was fatally shot by a bystander who saw him fire at a truck and enter the school, police have said. The bystander followed the 16-year-old gunman and shot him as another teacher was wrestling with him over the
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Oct 21, 2026
Billionaire technology investor Peter Thiel said he's skeptical of the U.S. war with Iran and does not believe the United States should have launched it, putting the major Republican donor at odds with President Donald Trump over one of the administration's defining foreign policy decisions.
Thiel's remarks, delivered on Oct. 12 at a private event, are his most explicit statements to be revealed publicly about the war with Iran and come less than two weeks before the midterm elections in which Trump's party is grasping to maintain power in Congress. The audio of Thiel's comments was obtained by Decoded by POLITICO from a lecture earlier this month.
"I'm skeptical of [the war], I think we should not have done it," Thiel said. "There were a lot of mistakes that were made."
Thiel added, "Maybe we don't have the hard power. Maybe we're going to lose the soft power war."
In the full lecture, Thiel made clear his strong opposition to neoconservatives and Middle East wars. Despite his criticism of the Iran war, Thiel highlighted his continued support of Trump and suggested he wanted to protect the president.
Still, Thiel's break over the war represents one of the most important examples to date of a fierce Trump ally sharing deep concerns about the conflict.
The comments were part of Thiel's lecture series in Nashville, which Decoded has documented since their start this fall. In the latest lecture, Thiel issued extensive warnings about what he described as the unchecked po
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Oct 21, 2026
ORLEANS, Mass. (AP) — The "looksmaxxing" livestreamer Braden Peters, better known by his stage name Clavicular, pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges that he raped a 17-year-old girl at his family's Massachusetts home.
A social media personality known for promoting extreme devotion to male beauty, Peters, 20, is accused of giving the girl alcohol until she was drunk and then sexually assaulting her when she visited him in Chatham, on Cape Cod, in May 2025.
Peters has denied the allegations through his lawyers, saying the sexual encounter was consensual.
Peters arrived at the courthouse in Orleans, Massachusetts, wearing a dark suit, walking a barking dog on a leash. He spoke only to the dog as he entered the courthouse and ignored reporters' questions. Peters maintained a neutral facial expression during the brief arraignment.
He has agreed to a $10,000 bail, surrendered his passport and will not contact or post about the woman who has accused him of assault.
He and his lawyers also didn't comment as he left the courthouse.
The case is the latest legal challenge for Peters, who has a million followers on Instagram, and whose hourslong livestreams feature him rating people's looks and talking about methods of becoming better looking that include surgery and drug use.
Earlier this year, he was charged with misdemeanor battery in Florida after police said he provoked a fight between two women and then posted a video of it online. That charge was later dropped. In a separate Florida case this year, he was sentenced to probation after pleading no contest to a charge that he fired a gun in public.
The woman who accused Peters of rape told police he had been paying her to appear in
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Oct 21, 2026
The mother of a toddler found alive in an Arizona hospital morgue in February more than five hours after he was pronounced dead said Wednesday she thought she heard him breathing when she hugged him goodbye.
But instead of listening to her gut, Alexus Fiordilino said, she believed the doctor who told her those were 18-month-old Vincent's last gasps and that any further attempts to save him would just prolong his agony.
"As a mom you don't want to hear that," Fiordilino, 30, said in an interview. "I didn't want him to suffer. It seemed to be they'd done everything they could. And then he called it."
Fiordilino was referring to Dr. Aryan Toosi, who pronounced Vincent dead at 6:20 p.m. on Super Bowl Sunday at Mercy Gilbert Medical Center in Gilbert, Arizona.
A little over five hours later, Fiordilino said, police were questioning her and her husband, Angelo, when a detective burst into the room and told them that a medical examiner's employee who had come to collect Vincent's body had discovered he was still alive.
"My husband and I just screamed in relief," she said. "We were praising the Lord. We were crying. To go from hearing he was gone and then finding out he isn't gone, it's an unexplainable feeling."
Fiordilino spoke out more than eight months after her son's remarkable story of survival after he nearly drowned in the family swimming pool made national headlines and sparked multiple investigations into what happened on Feb. 8.
The Gilbert Police Department had recommended filing child abuse charges against both parents for losing track of Vincent while a Super Bowl party was going on at their residence.
"Both admitted to smoking marijua
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Oct 21, 2026
WASHINGTON (AP) — Voter turnout is soaring compared with the last midterm election in many of the states that are expected to decide control of the U.S. Senate, according to an Associated Press analysis of early voting two weeks before Election Day.
In Texas, early voting is up 74% compared with 2022. In Kansas it's more than doubled. Maine, North Carolina and Ohio also have seen increases of more than 30% in early in-person and mail voting compared with the same point in 2022.
Democrats are trying to flip Republican-held Senate seats in each of those states. In most of them, Republicans are accounting for a smaller share of advance voters than they did four years ago.
The AP's data, which runs through Tuesday, gives a snapshot of potential voter enthusiasm — and where it might be lacking — after early voting has opened in most states during a midterm cycle that has shifted in often unpredictable ways.
Dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump's tariffs, the persistently high cost of living, and high gas and diesel prices caused by the Iran war have generated political blowback against Republicans in places the party didn't anticipate having to defend this year.
Nationally, more than 13 million mail-in and early in-person votes have been
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Oct 21, 2026
Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday, Oct. 21, defended Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy's controversial campaign ad and criticized Republicans who thought it was inappropriate, arguing that they were focused on the wrong fight.
"I have to admit that I'm a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America," Vance said.
His comments came days after an ad featuring the estranged mother of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton sparked backlash by accusing her of being a liar and claiming she needed help.
"Vivek Ramaswamy had the audacity to run a TV commercial which calls it out like it is and calls Amy Acton a liar," Vance said.
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Oct 21, 2026
Super Typhoon Champi, which is barreling across the western Pacific Ocean, became one of the strongest storms on Earth in 2026 on Wednesday.
The tropical cyclone tied April's Super Typhoon Sinlaku for the strongest 1-minute sustained winds of 2026, at 185 mph, which is equivalent to a Category 5 hurricane.
Hurricanes and typhoons are both tropical cyclones with sustained winds of at least 74 mph.
"A tropical cyclone is a generic term used by meteorologists to describe a rotating, organized system of clouds and thunderstorms that originates over tropical or subtropical waters and has closed, low-level circulation," according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The main difference between hurricanes and typhoons is geographic: Storms in the Northwest Pacific are called typhoons, while those in the North Atlantic and central and eastern North Pacific are called hurricanes.
The Joint Typhoon Warning Center classifies a storm as a super typhoon when its 1-minute sustained winds reach at least 150 mph. That threshold falls within the Category 4 hurricane range.
What is Champi's path?Champi is currently east of the Philippines and southeast of Taiwan, moving west-northwest across the Philippine Sea at 15 mph. Maximum sustained winds are at 175 mph, after peaking at 185 mph, according to the latest update from the
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Oct 21, 2026
The warnings about El Niño continue to roll in. The United Nations' weather agency weighed in on Oct. 21, calling the potent climate pattern a "behemoth" and a "wrecking ball."
"It will tear through Latin America, Eastern and Southern Africa, Asia and the Pacific with extreme heat, droughts and flood," the U.N.'s Tom Fletcher said, warning of profound humanitarian consequences.
El Niño, a natural warming of Pacific Ocean waters that affects weather and climate patterns worldwide, tends to cause higher global temperatures and disrupt rainfall patterns across large regions, meaning drought in some areas and heavy rains in others.
It triggers disruptive weather patterns that often impact agriculture, infrastructure and supply chains, potentially causing trillions of dollars in damages around the globe.
El Niño is forecast with "high confidence" to be at record-breaking strength and peak this winter, NOAA's Climate Prediction Center said.
"This will certainly be an historic El Niño," Michael Mann, a climate scientist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, told USA TODAY. It will be the "biggest event on record," but because reliable records only go back less than a century, it's difficult to assess how unusual it is in a longer-term context, Mann said.
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Oct 21, 2026
Saudi Arabia has been facing near-daily attacks from the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen (Fayez Nureldine)Washington has ordered non-essential US embassy staff and their families to leave Saudi Arabia, the State Department said on Wednesday, as the kingdom comes under sustained deadly attacks by Yemen's Houthis.
It came after a diplomatic source told AFP that "all American staff and their families have been ordered to depart from the US embassy" in the Gulf kingdom.
The source added that families of embassy staff had also been ordered to leave the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain, all of which have been targeted by Iran during the Middle East war.
US State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott subsequently confirmed the order in a post on X, but said it applied to "non-emergency US government employees and their family members in Saudi Arabia only".
He linked the move to Houthi attacks on the country, including airports, saying "the safety and security of Department personnel and their families remain our highest priority".
Saudi Arabia has this month come under near-daily attacks from the Iran-backed Houthis, including a strike on Riyadh's international airport that was the kingdom's deadliest in years, as the war with the group escalates.
On Wednesday, the Saudi energy ministry said that falling debris from the successful interception of a drone targeting an oil facility killed two people and injured a further two.
"The attempted attack resulted in the deaths of two individuals, a Filipino and a Nepali, and injuries to two others," the ministry said in a statement.
It did not say who launched the drone aimed at Shaybah oil field near the UAE border. Earlier on Wednesday, the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen reported intercepting six dron
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Oct 21, 2026
(Corrects paragraph 2 to "a company" in New Mexico attorney general's comment, from "the company")
By Diana Novak Jones
Oct 21 (Reuters) - A judge in New Mexico ordered Meta Platforms to pay $25 billion on Wednesday after a jury found the company had misled consumers in a case arising from allegations that a political consulting firm involved in Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign obtained data from millions of Facebook users without their ?consent.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said it was one of the largest, if not the largest, single state verdict against a company in American history.
"Facebook's wrongdoing — over the course of years and systematically broadcast ?to the public — goes to the heart of Facebook's core business practices," Judge Francis Mathew wrote in his order following the verdict.
Mathew found that a penalty of more than $219 billion was warranted, based on state law, but he reduced the figure to $25 billion.
In a statement, C.J. Mahoney, Meta's chief ?legal officer, said the company is confident it will win on appeal.
"This ruling, and the Attorney General's approach to this enforcement, makes it all but impossible to do business in the state of New Mexico," Mahoney said. "At its core, this lawsuit seeks to impose a tax on speech to enforce new rules for what people can say online."
The company had previously said a penalty in the billions of dollars risked violating its constitutional rights to due process and protection from excessive fines.
The penalty is the largest levied against the tech giant in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. In 2019, the company was hit with a $5 billion penalty by the US Federal Trade Commission stemming from the same scandal.
Six other states settled their lawsuits related to ?Cambridge Analytica for $459.2 million as part of a $17.1 billion multistate settlement Meta reached ?in August
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Oct 21, 2026
A new campaign ad in which the estranged mother of Ohio gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton argues that her daughter should not be elected as the Buckeye State's next governor has added a new level of controversy to what was already one of the most closely watched races of the midterms.
Acton, a Democrat, is running to replace outgoing Republican Gov. Mike DeWine. She's facing Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, a billionaire who ran an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2024.
In the ad, Acton's mother, Donna Arthur, calls her daughter a "liar" and urges Ohioans not to support her.
"Don't let her become your governor," she says. "If you think she'll make your life better, you're fooling yourself. It will only get worse."
As the ad began to spread across social media, Acton's brother released a statement in which he accused Arthur of siding with their stepfather after he was charged with sexually abusing Acton when she was a child, and criticized Ramaswamy for attempting to use that abuse as a "political talking point."
Ramaswamy defended the ad on Tuesday, telling reporters that Acton's account of her past "does deserve to be scrutinized." His campaign confirmed to the Enquirer that it will spend $4 million to air the ad across the state.
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Oct 21, 2026
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to let it resume building a border wall project through the Big Bend region of Texas.
The government filed an emergency appeal asking the justices to lift a lower court decision halting construction. That ruling marked a setback to one of President Donald Trump's signature projects.
The administration has been racing forward with construction on a border wall and other infrastructure from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.
But in the Big Bend region, the administration has run into opposition from ranchers, residents, business owners and environmentalists who argue the projects are a waste of money in an area of historically low illegal immigration and that construction could harm the region's scenic landscapes.
Opponents have filed numerous lawsuits seeking to stop the project, which in the Big Bend consists of a mixture of walls, vehicle barriers and surveillance technology.
Ruling in one of those cases, Judge Kathleen Cardone on Oct. 2 ordered the government to stop construction across the roughly 500-mile project area while the case plays out in the courts. It was a major victory for the bipartisan opposition.
The case hinges on sweeping waivers signed by the secretary of Homeland Security that allow U.S. Customs and Border Protection to bypass environmental and other
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Oct 21, 2026
September's uptick in inflation dealt Americans with higher prices just before the midterm elections, as Democrats seek to wrestle back control of Congress from the GOP by highlighting affordability concerns.
Annual inflation was 3.7 percent last month, according to the consumer price index (CPI). On a monthly basis, the cost of energy, gas and electricity rose.
The cost of food held steady from August to September and was up 2.5 percent year over year.
Democrats have campaigned on lowering the cost of living, zeroing in on President Trump's tariffs and the Iran war as the causes of price hikes.
Trump and Republicans, meanwhile, have accused the opposition of falling victim to "
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Oct 21, 2026
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday pushed back against suggestions that the Trump administration had ordered Elon Musk's Starlink and its military-grade counterpart, Starshield, to limit Ukraine's access to the satellite communications networks, saying any such decisions were up to the SpaceX founder — and not the White House.
"We cannot direct a private company as to the decisions they make or not make," Rubio told reporters on an overseas trip in Mumbai.
Rubio had stated previously that "nobody" had ordered Starlink's speed to be slowed down, adding that it just "sort of happened."
The secretary of state spoke by phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday in an effort to ease tensions.
Appearing on Fox & Friends on Wednesday, Zelensky said that Starlink connectivity is still limited in Ukraine and was told by Rubio that the U.S. State Department would work to "unblock" the slowdown.
What is Starshield and why is it so important to Ukraine?Ukraine soldiers set up a Starlink satellite communication terminal in the Donetsk region on Oct. 16.NurPhoto via Getty ImagesStarshield is a low-earth satellite network designed by SpaceX for government use.
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Oct 21, 2026
The biggest question heading into November's midterms is whether, once all votes have been counted, Democrats or Republicans will win control of Congress. The final answer, though, might ultimately depend on someone who isn't a member of any party.
Dan Osborn is an independent candidate running for Senate in Nebraska. He's challenging Republican incumbent Sen. Pete Ricketts in a race that appears on track to be the closest contest the deep-red state has seen in decades.
Osborn has consistently been critical of both parties and puts major emphasis on the goal of breaking up their control over American politics. That could make him something of a wild card if he's elected to the nation's most important legislative body.
Here's what you need to know about who he is, what he stands for and what he needs to do to pull off an upset in the typically deep-red state of Nebraska.
YahooWho is Dan Osborn?Osborn grew up in Omaha, Neb., as the son of a railroad worker and a seamstress. When he was 16, his parents moved to Washington state after his father suffered a workplace accident that forced him to transition to a desk job — Osborn chose to stay in Nebraska and live on his own. After graduating fro
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Oct 21, 2026
The biggest question heading into November's midterms is whether, once all votes have been counted, Democrats or Republicans will win control of Congress. The final answer, though, might ultimately depend on someone who isn't a member of any party.
Dan Osborn is an independent candidate running for Senate in Nebraska. He's challenging Republican incumbent Sen. Pete Ricketts in a race that appears on track to be the closest contest the deep-red state has seen in decades.
Osborn has consistently been critical of both parties and puts major emphasis on the goal of breaking up their control over American politics. That could make him something of a wild card if he's elected to the nation's most important legislative body.
Here's what you need to know about who he is, what he stands for and what he needs to do to pull off an upset in the typically deep-red state of Nebraska.
YahooWho is Dan Osborn?Osborn grew up in Omaha, Neb., as the son of a railroad worker and a seamstress. When he was 16, his parents moved to Washington state after his father suffered a workplace accident that forced him to transition to a desk job — Osborn chose to stay in Nebraska and live on his own. After graduating fro
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Oct 21, 2026
Vice President JD Vance dismissed criticism over a controversial ad from Ohio GOP gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign on Wednesday, slamming Republicans for appearing to care more about playing nice than winning elections.
"I have to admit that I'm a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America," Vance said at a press conference ahead of a campaign event with Ramaswamy and Ohio Sen. John Husted.
Ramaswamy has faced sharp blowback across the political spectrum in recent days for the ad, which featured denunciations from the mother of Amy Acton, the Democrat with whom he is locked in a tight battle for control of the once-reliably Republican state. Acton was removed from her mother's home after her stepfather was charged with raping her. She has long been estranged from her mother.
Ramaswamy acknowledged his campaign was behind the advertisement on Tuesday, a day after it first came to light.
The same day, Acton's brother, Philip Stearns, said that the advertisementwas a "desperate, disgusting attack" and "reveals exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is at his core."
A series of high-profile Republicans have panned the ad, including Husted, who campaigned with Ramaswamy on Wednesday.
"I would not have run that ad," the Republican told The Associated Press in a statement his campaign forwarded to POLITICO.
Nikki Haley, who clashed with Ramaswamy when they both ran for president in 2024, said it was proof of "what we tried to tell everyone back then."
"He's a bad guy," she said. "It's a shame he continues to get away with it."
Vance, who has been on the ballot in two
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Oct 21, 2026
Opposition to data centers, an issue barely on anyone's radar in the 2024 election, has now united voters across the political spectrum.
According to a May Gallup poll, more than 70% of Americans are opposed to AI data center construction in their local area. It makes sense when you consider that this midterms cycle is heavily focused on rising living costs. Data centers — facilities that store, process and distribute digital data, and have become more common in the AI era — use up massive amounts of water and electricity, raising concerns that the costs will be passed down to local communities in the form of electric bill hikes and water rate increases.
The Data Center Opposition Project, which tracks the rise of grassroots nonprofits in the U.S. that are against the development of data centers, recently found that more than 200 new groups popped up between June and August of this year, suggesting the issue has salience with voters across the country.
Heading into the midterms, that could be a major problem for candidates and incumbents who have supported data center projects. And in many cases, their opponents are making sure voters are well aware of their positions.
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Oct 21, 2026
Democrats have filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump and the Justice Department, alleging that the Trump administration is unlawfully interfering with the midterms by pressuring states to remove voters from their rolls.
The complaint, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, cites the Department of Homeland Security's recent demands that states remove alleged noncitizens from their voter rolls. The complaint argues such action is based on "shoddily compiled lists" that have "crumbled upon the barest inspection."
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The complaint also alleges that Trump administration officials at the Justice and Homeland Security departments have directed a "persistent stream of threats and intimidation" at state and local election officials across the country. The complaint noted that Trump himself had last week threatened to imprison California election officials if they counted mail-in ballots by people the Trump administration claimed were noncitizens.
"None of this is lawful," the complaint states. "The Executive Branch enjoys no authority to superintend state voter list maintenance, to supplant state determinations of who is qualified to vote, or to dictate who gets a ballot or whose ballot gets segregated."
The complaint, filed by three national Democratic groups and other Democratic leaders, asks a federal court to stop Trump and his administration from trying to alter states' voter rolls and to stop pressuring and threatening election officials.
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Oct 21, 2026
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court said the administration can't immediately deny gender-affirming care for inmates in federal prisons, a rare loss at the high court for President Donald Trump's executive orders denying recognition of transgender people.
The court on Oct. 21 declined to allow the administration's policy to go into effect before a legal challenge plays out.
The order did not include an explanation, which is common for actions on emergency requests.
Two of the court's six conservative justices - Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito - dissented.
An attorney with the ACLU, which represents the prisoners, called the ruling critical for incarcerated transgender people.
"The denial of medically necessary health care, including gender-affirming health care, to people in prison is a violation of their fundamental constitutional rights, said Li Nowlin-Sohl with the ACLU's LGBTQ & HIV Project.
Transgender inmates incarcerated at federal correctional institutions in New Jersey, Florida and Minnesota filed a class-action lawsuit challenging the rules.
Under the policy, announced by the Bureau of Prisons in February, transgender inmates can no
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Oct 21, 2026
You can't hold antimatter in your hand or even in a regular laboratory apparatus. As soon as antimatter meets matter, the two tend to annihilate each other. This makes studying antimatter tricky. But now physicists have managed to trap a single subatomic particle of the stuff for months at a time in a way that allows them to study its quantum states.
Further investigations using the trap might reveal the secret of why the world around us is made of matter and not antimatter, when things could have presumably gone either way.
Every normal particle of matter has an antimatter counterpart with equal mass but opposite charge. To build their trap, physicists started with atoms of sodium 22, a radioactive isotope with a half-life of about two and a half years. When one of these atoms decays, it emits a positron—the antimatter counterpart of the electron.
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"The big challenge is to persuade these positrons to slow down and then capture them," says Gerald Gabrielse, a physicist at Northwestern University, who oversaw the project. The team reported its achievement on Wednesday in Physical Review Letters.
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Oct 21, 2026
When Andrae Wright left his job as an investigator at the Effingham County Sheriff's Office in 2021, he handed in his gun and badge. But he kept something powerful: his log-in credentials for Flock, a police tool he used to search a vast network of roadside cameras tracking the locations of passing cars.
In the five years after leaving the force, Wright searched the system more than 60 times without being stopped by anyone at the Georgia sheriff's office, according to a statement by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and Flock audit logs reviewed by The Post. He repeatedly searched the location of a vanity license plate bearing the middle name of his wife, according to the audit logs. The couple divorced this year, court records show, and at the time of some of his Flock searches, Wright was fighting for permanent custody of their teenage daughter.
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In July, after a tipster alerted local authorities, police arrested Wright and charged him with stalking his wife, claiming he misused Flock data "for the purpose of harassing and intimidating her," according to his warrant. State law restricts the use of license plate readers to legitimate law enforcement investigations.
Wright did not respond to phone calls, text messages or voicemails seeking comment. Brian Bailey, a sheriff's office spokesman, said that the agency had not conducted regular audits of who had access to its Flock system during that time but that it plans to begin doing so.
The case marked one of at least 11 times in which government officials have discovered unauthorized users have gained access to Flock databases and searched them without permission, sometimes to track the locations of ro
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Oct 21, 2026
President Trump has discussed the possibility of moving the White House press corps to another building, according to two people close to the president — a move that could escalate Mr. Trump's clashes with news organizations over coverage and access.
Outside allies of the president have pushed the idea in recent weeks, including former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, one source told CBS News.
No final decisions have been made, according to both sources.
The discussions were first reported by The New York Times.
White House communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement: "America is rightly distrustful of the fake news media because they fabricate stories based off lies and sources who are not even privy to any type of information. … All options remain on the table, and we will make an announcement when appropriate."
Reporters have had dedicated workspaces in the White House building for more than a century. The current press briefing room was constructed during the Nixon administration, replacing a swimming pool that dated back to Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency.
But late last month, Mr. Trump posted a before-and-after image to Truth Social that suggested the briefing room could be turned back into a swimming pool.
Ahead of Mr. Trump's first term, administration officials floated the idea of moving the press corps out of the building, fra
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Oct 21, 2026
Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is doubling down on a controversial ad featuring his opponent's estranged mother with a $4 million buy.
The ad, which leaked Oct. 19, features the estranged mother of Democratic candidate Amy Acton accusing the candidate of lying about her upbringing. Acton hasn't spoken to her mother since 1978, when her stepfather, Cledith Arthur, was accused of sexually abusing her as a child.
Acton's brother, Philip Stearns, and court records reviewed by the statehouse bureau back up Acton's account of a childhood filled with abuse, neglect and at times, homelessness. Acton's mother, Donna Arthur, lost custody of her two children and left Ohio with Cledith before the rape case against him could be resolved.
"It's not surprising that Vivek Ramaswamy has stooped to such a despicable low as to attempt to turn the sexual abuse Amy endured at 12 years old from our birth mother's husband into a political talking point," Stearns said.
But Ramaswamy is airing that ad anyway. The Republican candidate said people close to Acton, including a mother she has not spoken to in 48 years, have urged Ohioans not to vote for her.
"This is part of a pattern of someone else who appears to know her well who says the same thing, and I do think that it's important for voters to take all of that into account," Ramaswamy told the statehouse bureau.
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Oct 21, 2026
The Justice Department's inspector general has declined to investigate allegations of misconduct against the prosecutors who brought an indictment against Olympian David Hearn that falsely accused him of vandalizing the Reflecting Pool.
In an Oct. 21 letter seen by CBS News, lawyers for Hearn revealed that DOJ's Inspector General Don Berthiaume determined the allegations fell outside of his purview, and referred the matter to the Office of Professional Responsibility.
Established in the wake of the Watergate scandal, the Office of Professional Responsibility is charged with investigating certain categories of attorney misconduct.
Unlike the inspector general, who is presidentially-appointed and Senate confirmed, however, the head of the Office of Professional Responsibility is appointed by the Attorney General and is generally viewed as less independent than an inspector general's office.
Last year, Justice Department leadership removed the career official in charge of the office, a maneuver that raised concerns among longtime department veterans about whether the office would be willing to hold Trump-appointed officials accountable.
In their response to the inspector general's declination, Hearn's attorneys noted that the office has been depleted by roughly 50% since the start of the Trump administration.
"The plain fact is that OPR is no longer a fully functioning entity capable of conducting rigorous oversight," they wrote.
The attorneys added that the declination from the inspector general's office means that an investigation "will simply not take place."
On Oct. 6, Hearn's lawyers asked both the DOJ inspector general and the inspector g
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Oct 21, 2026
Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang says that for data center builders to win over communities, they must first partner with them and be good neighbors.
"When you go into a community … before you start building, you ought to extend yourself out to the local community and partner with them," Huang told Deirdre Bosa during the company's GTC event in Berlin.
"Let them know what you're about to do is going to bring, of course, all the benefits, but it's going to, of course, bring new neighbors," he said.
Data center construction has faced major pushback across the US, with some counties and towns instituting outright bans on the facilities. New York has placed a one-year, statewide moratorium on data center construction. Texas, meanwhile, has put connecting new data centers to its grid on hold as it works to determine their potential impact.
The issue has even become a flash point in the midterm elections, with President Trump backing data center development, and Democrats and some Republicans campaigning against them.Residents have lodged complaints about the constant noise generated by data centers, water usage, increased electricity costs, and more.
To
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Oct 21, 2026
The U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) said Tuesday that it has corrected millions of records associated with nearly 15% of active Social Security numbers (SSN), which it said was part of an effort to prevent fraud.
The agency called it the "most comprehensive SSN record clean-up" in its 91-year history, and said it had added 17 million missing dates of death to its records and updated citizenship information for about 25 million records.
It is also working to correct another 8.5 million records with inaccurate citizenship status and has introduced stronger internal controls to prevent future data-entry errors.
"This is the first time SSA has undertaken an effort of this scale, and I am proud of the work we have done to strengthen the foundation of identity data relied upon throughout government and the economy," Commissioner Frank J. Bisignano said in a statement outlining the work the agency had carried out.
The SSA said the changes are intended to improve the accuracy of records used by federal and state agencies to verify identities, prevent fraud and ensure government benefits are paid correctly.
Here's what we know about the cleanup so far — and what it could mean for your account.
What exactly has Social Security changed?The SSA cleanup focuses on the Social Security number (SSN) database, which government agencies use to verify identities and help administer benefits.
According to the SSA, millions of records were missing a date of death or citizenship information.
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Oct 21, 2026
Nvidia (NVDA) wants to reduce the time it takes for its customers to start generating revenue from its AI systems.
At its GTC event in Berlin on Wednesday, the company unveiled its DSX POD, a reference design for an AI data center packed into a box about the size of a standard shipping container.
Data center construction can take months, if not years, to get up and running. And because they don't start generating revenue until they begin processing AI tokens, the longer a data center takes to come online, the more expenses pile up.
The DSX POD is meant to serve as a faster, modular solution for companies that need access to data center capabilities sooner rather than later.
"The moment then you have to install these AI factories, and they're gigantic. And putting these AI factories into service takes months. If we could reduce that months, you know, from the moment that the systems are shipped to the moment that it's deployed and being operational, if we could reduce it from months to weeks or even a month, that will be completely game-changing for all of these AI factories," CEO Jensen Huang told Deirdre Bosa.
According to Nvidia, the Vera Rubin-powered DSX PODs will arrive on site, ready to be plugged into the power, cooling, and networking infrastructure, reducing deployment time from six months to 14 days.The company said DSX PODs won't replace traditional data centers, but will serve as a means to start running AI applications before brick-and-mortar facilities ar
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Oct 21, 2026
An annual meteor spectacle is peaking this week as Earth sweeps through a trail of cosmic crumbs left behind by Halley's comet.
The Orionid, one of the two major meteor showers left by Halley, the most famous comet in the sky, will streak into Earth's atmosphere at around 148,000 mph this week, and it will be possible for viewers to spot 20 meteors per hour in peak viewing conditions.
The celestial event, which occurs every October, is named after the constellation Orion and will be visible across the night sky without the need for any special equipment, according to NASA. Here's what to know ahead of the Orionids' 2026 appearance.
What is a meteor shower?As Earth orbits the sun, it passes through trails of debris left behind by comets, and occasionally asteroids, several times a year. When these fast-moving specks of debris, mostly no bigger than grains of sand, hit Earth's atmosphere, the collision with air molecules heats them until they vaporize. The glowing streak they leave behind is what we call a "shooting star."
The Orionids come from Halley's comet, which won't be back in the inner solar system until 2061. It has left a stream of debris along its orbit, and Earth passes through that stream every October, which is why the Orionids return every year.
This photo provided by NASA shows the Orionid meteors ba
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Oct 21, 2026
Armed and in uniform, federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security have been knocking on doors in several states to ask residents about their immigration status — and to inquire if they have registered to vote or cast votes in past elections, a CBS News Investigation has found.
The operation is part of an effort to root out potential noncitizen voters ahead of the midterms. DHS has alleged that there could be as many as 250,000 citizens illegally registered to vote, although election experts have disputed the accuracy of this figure. Just 156 people have been charged with voting-fraud related offenses since the beginning of the Trump administration, according to the Department of Justice. There are 227 million registered voters in the U.S.
Critics say that sending armed federal agents to the doors of U.S. residents could be intimidating for legal voters.
"What we're seeing now is the federal government is inserting itself into the state process for verifying their voter roles in an unprecedented way," said Jessica Marsden, a lawyer for Protect Democracy, a left-leaning advocacy group that is suing the federal agency over the door-knocking campaign. "And they are doing it in a way that seems maximally designed to scare lawful voters from participating."
The home visits ramped up in September, in the thick of the midterm campaign season, and continued over the past weekend. The Justice Department announced Monday that Homeland Security agents in California
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Oct 21, 2026
Russia on Wednesday released a retired American teacher who had been imprisoned on charges of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff said Wednesday at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg.
The release of Stephen Hubbard had been foreshadowed a day earlier in Washington, when President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that he had talked with Putin "at length" about the issue and had asked him to free the Michigan man.
Hubbard is the second American detainee in just over two months to be freed by Russia, and his exit from custody occurred not only during a visit by Witkoff but also at a time when Trump has taken a series of actions meant to benefit Russia as Washington's alliance with Ukraine shows signs of fraying.
Hubbard was sentenced after a closed trial in 2024 to nearly seven years in prison. Prosecutors said he had signed a contract with the Ukrainian military after Russia sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, and that he fought alongside them until being captured two months later. The U.S. government under the Biden administration designated Hubbard as wrongfully detained.
Witkoff, a key Trump administration envoy who has tried without success to steer Russia and Ukraine toward a settlement to end a war that will hit the five-year mark in February, thanked Putin for releasing Hubbard, telling him, "Because of you, he's going home to his family." The Russian leader responded that Hubbard was at the St. P
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Oct 21, 2026
House Republicans have publicly cheered on the Trump administration's investigation of Rep. Ilhan Omar. But underneath the posturing, the raid raises thorny nonpartisan questions about how aggressively Congress wants to defend itself from encroaching federal prosecutors.
The Department of Homeland Security investigators who raided Omar's Washington home last week were searching for evidence related to the Minnesota Democrat's immigration history. But they also emerged in possession of her personal phone, which likely includes a trove of records related to Omar's work at the Capitol — records that both parties have a strong interest in keeping private.
Lawmakers use their cellphones and computers to communicate with aides about upcoming votes, committee hearings and drafting or filing legislation. They text and email colleagues about the work of the House. And they talk to constituents, advisers, attorneys and experts about crucial congressional decisions. The Constitution's "speech or debate" clause makes such material absolutely immune from scrutiny by federal prosecutors, with few exceptions.
The founders adopted those protections to ensure the executive branch could not use its law enforcement power to punish or coerce opponents in Congress. That principle has united Democrats and Republicans, even in this hyperpolarized era.
Speaker Mike Johnson has yet to weigh in on the speech-or-debate implications of the Omar raid, but the House has sometimes taken weeks or months to articulate a position in other recent investigations.
A letter from Omar's attorneys to the Justice Department, reviewed by POLITICO, suggested that the magistrate judge who approved the search ordered investigators to contact the House's top lawyer, Matthew Berry, giving him a c
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Oct 21, 2026
Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed Wednesday to resume trilateral negotiations with Washington and Kyiv on ending the war in Ukraine, a Kremlin official said.
The Russian leader has agreed "in principle" to resume the talks after Nov. 10, Putin's foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov told reporters following a meeting in St. Petersburg between Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff.
The trilateral talks will focus on "building a security system for Russia and Ukraine after the conflict ends," Ushakov said.
Witkoff's talks with Putin about Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine came as Trump pushes Kyiv to make a deal that stops the fighting.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has insisted only a summit of leaders can break the impasse. The two armies remain locked on the battlefield and they pummel each other with daily long-range strikes.
Representatives of the three countries held three rounds of trilateral negotiations early this year, meeting twice in Abu Dhabi in January and February, followed by further talks in Geneva in February.
However, there was little progress beyond exchanges of prisoners of war as Moscow and Kyiv stuck to their basic demands.
The discussion in St. Petersburg lasted about three hours, the Kremlin said, and came a day after Witkoff met with Ukrai
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Oct 21, 2026
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said Tuesday that one of her district offices was mailed a suspicious envelope. Pool Photo by Adam Gray/UPI
Oct. 21 (UPI) -- At least nine U.S. lawmakers announced Tuesday that suspicious envelopes had been mailed to their offices, the latest in a wave of similar mailings targeting federal legislators from both parties in the past week.
More than three dozen senators and House members have reported receiving suspicious envelopes, some containing white powder or unknown substances, or having them intercepted by postal investigators. The mailings were first reported Oct. 13, when suspicious letters were received by the offices of elected officials in Louisiana and Oklahoma.
On Tuesday, lawmakers who announced letters had been sent to their offices included Reps. Nanette Barragán, D-Calif.; Shontel Brown, D-Ohio; Jim Costa, D-Calif.; Robert Garcia, D-Calif.; Pablo José Hernández, D-P.R.; Donald Norcross, D-N.J.; and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.; and Sens. Jim Banks, R-Ind.; and Deb Fischer, R-Neb.
"This string of suspicious mailings started two weeks before a consequential midterm election and is seemingly intended to intimidate public servants and sow further division," Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement Tuesday, announcing that a suspicious letter had been delivered to her district office in Hunts Point.
"Political violence has no place in our country. It is always unacceptable and we must all refuse to normalize an unsafe and volatile political environment where everyday people are put at risk."
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Oct 21, 2026
Like so many Americans, Jenny Escolastico has watched wearily as the cost of living has risen, straining her household budget. But as a mother of two children under 5, she faces added pressure that could shape how she votes in November: childcare costs.
Escolastico's household outside Allentown, Pennsylvania, is relying solely on her husband's income. She's staying home with her children, at least in part because she simply can't afford to work.
"What I would be spending on childcare would be more than what I would be making if I were working full time," said Escolastico, an Air Force veteran who later worked in human resources. "Childcare is another rent, another car note." Even though her son now attends state-funded prekindergarten, returning to work would still mean finding him after-school care, plus full-time childcare for her daughter.
Those costs are top of mind as Escolastico, who voted for President Donald Trump in 2024, weighs whether to vote Democratic next month.
She lives in Pennsylvania's hotly contested 7th Congressional District, one of a handful that will determine which party controls Congress next year. The midterm elections have been dominated by anxiety over rising prices for gas, groceries and housing, a liability for Trump and his Republican Party. For millions of parents of young children, childcare is one of the largest strains on the family budget.
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Oct 21, 2026
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bill Clinton famously said he could feel voters' pain over the economy. But these days, when it comes to questions about high prices, President Donald Trump insists that the pain is his.
"They hit me with affordability, and that's the first time I ever heard the word used," he complained in Nebraska earlier this month.
The White House leaves Vice President JD Vance to use a softer touch. Last month in Texas, he admitted "there are people out there who are frustrated by the pace of progress." And during a CBS News town hall on Saturday, Vance said, "I recognize that gas prices are too high right now" and "we're working on it."
Depending on which Republican is speaking, Americans are getting a different perspective on how bad things are with the economy. Trump says "the golden age of America is upon us." Vance walks a tightrope to show that he knows voters are feeling an economic pinch while still selling them on Trump's agenda.
The disconnect comes as Americans' confidence in the economy sank to the lowest level in more than a decade this month, the average long-term U.S. mortgage rate jumped this month to its highest level in nearly three years and the unemployment rate ticked up last month.
Recent economic data released this month shows that high gasoline prices are intensifying i
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Oct 21, 2026
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bill Clinton famously said he could feel voters' pain over the economy. But these days, when it comes to questions about high prices, President Donald Trump insists that the pain is his.
"They hit me with affordability, and that's the first time I ever heard the word used," he complained in Nebraska earlier this month.
The White House leaves Vice President JD Vance to use a softer touch. Last month in Texas, he admitted "there are people out there who are frustrated by the pace of progress." And during a CBS News town hall on Saturday, Vance said, "I recognize that gas prices are too high right now" and "we're working on it."
Depending on which Republican is speaking, Americans are getting a different perspective on how bad things are with the economy. Trump says "the golden age of America is upon us." Vance walks a tightrope to show that he knows voters are feeling an economic pinch while still selling them on Trump's agenda.
The disconnect comes as Americans' confidence in the economy sank to the lowest level in more than a decade this month, the average long-term U.S. mortgage rate jumped this month to its highest level in nearly three years and the unemployment rate ticked up last month.
Recent economic data released this month shows that high gasoline prices are intensifying i
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Oct 20, 2026
What started as a disjointed speech in Greenville from President Donald Trump ended as a rallying cry from the president to elect struggling Republican candidates on North Carolina's ballot.
Trump went as far as to promise $5,000 to every adult citizen if Republicans take back the House and Senate — a promise he's made in the past — and to also tie the election results to pending lawsuits by Marines who have suffered serious medical complications from contaminated water at Camp Lejeune.
"Tonight, I'm pleased to announce that my administration has delivered $1 billion in cash settlements to these veterans and their families, most of whom are based here," Trump said.
Trump said if Republicans win the House and Senate he will direct the Department of Justice to settle all remaining legitimate claims as soon as possible.
"If we don't win, there's no money," Trump said. "If we do win, you're getting it."
Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, immediately posted on social media in response to Trump's statement.
"Real leaders fight for the people, not for power," Stein said. "To condition doing the right thing by sick North Carolinians on who wins the election is foul."
Andrew Bates, a former spokesman for President Joe Biden and an adviser to former Gov. Roy Cooper's Senate campaign, called Trump's statement "an anti patriotic thing for the president to say."
Boosting Whatley and bashing Cooper
Trump, standing at Pitt-Greenville Airport, told the audience of around 1,500, according to pool reports, that he came to North Carolina for two reasons: "I want to tell you how bad Cooper is, and I want to tell you how great Michael Whatley is."
Cooper, 69, a Democrat from Raleigh, is running against Whatley, 58, a Republican from Gastonia. A
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Oct 20, 2026
A chorus of condemnation from some Ohio politicians is growing against Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy over an attack ad produced by his campaign that featured his opponent's estranged mother criticizing her and questioning the years of abuse she endured as a child.
The ad, which has not been aired on television but spread on social media, shows Dr. Amy Acton's estranged mother, Donna Stearns Arthur, criticizing Acton, calling her a liar and casting doubt on Acton's upbringing. Acton has been estranged from Arthur since 1978 when her stepfather, Cledith Arthur, faced a rape charge for sexually assaulting Acton when she was 12 years old.
Cledith died in southern Pennsylvania and was never convicted of the charge, and Acton's mother stayed married to him until his death.
A clip of the ad, which blogger The Rooster shared on social media on Oct. 19, shows Arthur accusing her daughter of lying about Acton's upbringing, which included homelessness, neglect and abuse, and urging Ohioans not to vote for Acton. "It's not easy for a mother to say this, but Amy has a serious problem," Arthur says in the ad. "She is a liar. She lies about her past."
Acton's brother, Phillip Stearns, condemned the ad, and said Ramaswamy "
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Oct 20, 2026
A chorus of condemnation from some Ohio politicians is growing against Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy over an attack ad produced by his campaign that featured his opponent's estranged mother criticizing her and questioning the years of abuse she endured as a child.
The ad, which has not been aired on television but spread on social media, shows Dr. Amy Acton's estranged mother, Donna Stearns Arthur, criticizing Acton, calling her a liar and casting doubt on Acton's upbringing. Acton has been estranged from Arthur since 1978 when her stepfather, Cledith Arthur, faced a rape charge for sexually assaulting Acton when she was 12 years old.
Cledith died in southern Pennsylvania and was never convicted of the charge, and Acton's mother stayed married to him until his death.
A clip of the ad, which blogger The Rooster shared on social media on Oct. 19, shows Arthur accusing her daughter of lying about Acton's upbringing, which included homelessness, neglect and abuse, and urging Ohioans not to vote for Acton. "It's not easy for a mother to say this, but Amy has a serious problem," Arthur says in the ad. "She is a liar. She lies about her past."
Acton's brother, Phillip Stearns, condemned the ad, and said Ramaswamy "
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Oct 20, 2026
By Joe Brock
Oct 21 (Reuters) - Elon Musk believes a merger between Tesla and SpaceX is a good idea, he said on Tuesday, publicly backing an idea that would create one of the most valuable companies in the world, worth about $3.5 trillion.
While electric-vehicle maker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX ?were once seen as largely separate businesses, the lines between them have blurred as Musk expands into artificial intelligence, robotics, advanced manufacturing, satellite communications, and ?computing infrastructure, including data centers on Earth and potentially in orbit.
Here's what a potential merger could mean:
WHY WOULD MUSK DO THIS?
A merger would create a single company at the center of Musk's long-term vision: an ?integrated technology and manufacturing empire spanning AI, energy, robotics, communications, and transportation on Earth and beyond.
"I do think there's a lot of merit to combining the companies as we are pretty much in the superintelligence singularity, and there's a lot to be gained from cooperating on developing superintelligence software, chip design, the Terafab obviously, robotics, mass-to-orbit with the Starmind constellation (of orbital data centers), connectivity," Musk said on Tuesday.
Bringing the companies together could also simplify decision-making. Many of Musk's projects already cut across multiple companies, requiring approvals from separate boards and shareholders. ?A combined company would give management more freedom to deploy ?capital, engineering talent and infrastructure where it sees the greatest opportunity.
Musk has long argued that he needs greater influence over Tesla to pursue its AI and robotics strategy. He owns nearly a fifth of Tesla and holds voting control at SpaceX. A merger could consolidate ?his influence.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR INVESTORS?
Tesla shareholders would gain access to SpaceX's rapidly growing Starli
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Oct 20, 2026
By Joe Brock
Oct 21 (Reuters) - Elon Musk believes a merger between Tesla and SpaceX is a good idea, he said on Tuesday, publicly backing an idea that would create one of the most valuable companies in the world, worth about $3.5 trillion.
While electric-vehicle maker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX ?were once seen as largely separate businesses, the lines between them have blurred as Musk expands into artificial intelligence, robotics, advanced manufacturing, satellite communications, and ?computing infrastructure, including data centers on Earth and potentially in orbit.
Here's what a potential merger could mean:
WHY WOULD MUSK DO THIS?
A merger would create a single company at the center of Musk's long-term vision: an ?integrated technology and manufacturing empire spanning AI, energy, robotics, communications, and transportation on Earth and beyond.
"I do think there's a lot of merit to combining the companies as we are pretty much in the superintelligence singularity, and there's a lot to be gained from cooperating on developing superintelligence software, chip design, the Terafab obviously, robotics, mass-to-orbit with the Starmind constellation (of orbital data centers), connectivity," Musk said on Tuesday.
Bringing the companies together could also simplify decision-making. Many of Musk's projects already cut across multiple companies, requiring approvals from separate boards and shareholders. ?A combined company would give management more freedom to deploy ?capital, engineering talent and infrastructure where it sees the greatest opportunity.
Musk has long argued that he needs greater influence over Tesla to pursue its AI and robotics strategy. He owns nearly a fifth of Tesla and holds voting control at SpaceX. A merger could consolidate ?his influence.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR INVESTORS?
Tesla shareholders would gain access to SpaceX's rapidly growing Starli
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Oct 20, 2026
By Jan Wolfe
WASHINGTON, Oct 20 (Reuters) - US Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan on Tuesday said the court's conservative majority has undermined democracy and "created a race to the bottom" in how congressional districts are drawn.
Kagan, one of the court's ?three liberals, told students at Catholic University's law school that the conservatives have enabled increased political polarization by not reining ?in partisan gerrymandering, which involves states redrawing the boundaries of electoral districts based on the partisan leanings of voters to boost a political party's candidates.
In recent years, Kagan ?said, "both political parties have been engaged in a race to the bottom in terms of doing these partisan gerrymanders, effectively depriving masses of citizens of their rights to voting equality."
Partisan gerrymandering is driving political candidates "toward the extremes, because the only thing anybody has to worry about anymore is being primaried," Kagan said.
"It is making what I think is unfortunately a too polarized country even more so," Kagan said. "In this election, and ?the next election, we are seeing large states ?with substantial numbers of people who vote for Republicans and who vote for Democrats, and the states are going to be tried to turn all red or all blue in a way that I think is ?very destructive to our democracy."
The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, in April gutted a pillar of the Voting Rights Act, a landmark 1965 civil rights law that aimed to prevent racial discrimination in voting.
That ruling prompted a frenzied round of redistricting across the South to eliminate US House ?of ?Representatives districts where Black voters make up a majority or near-majority, as ?Republican-led states scrambled to take advantage of the decision. ?President Donald Trump's Republican Party is seeking to retain control of Congress in the November midterm elections.
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Oct 20, 2026
A decision by Elon Musk led to restrictions on Ukraine's use of SpaceX's satellite communications network, people familiar with the matter told CBS News.
The satellite service, which is used for drone operations, hitting certain targets and protecting sites in Ukraine, was slowed significantly last week.
Musk held multiple conversations with administration officials leading up to the order, the sources said. He wanted clarity on the president's thinking on the matter. Musk has expressed distaste with his company being seen as profiting from the continued war between Russia and Ukraine.
It's not clear how Musk's order to curtail service was executed.
Musk licenses SpaceX's Starshield technology to the U.S. government. He said last week the U.S. controls who can access the technology and what level of service those users receive.
"Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS," Musk, the world's richest person, wrote on X.
Musk did not reply to a request for comment. CBS News has reached out to the White House and the Pentagon for comment.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report on Musk's order.
The temporary restrictions came as a surprise to some officials inside the administration, who said neither Mr. Trump nor the Pentagon specifically ordered any limits meant to deliberately disrupt drone operations and battlefield communications.
Mr. Trump said Monday he was seeking details on who ordered the slowdown.
"I don't know who it was, but I'd like to find out," he said.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said
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Oct 20, 2026
Justice Elena Kagan spoke at Catholic University of America in Washington on Tuesday. (Aaron Schwartz / Bloomberg via Getty)WASHINGTON — Liberal Justice Elena Kagan sharply criticized the Supreme Court's conservative majority Tuesday, saying it undermined democracy in a series of rulings, including several that have prompted a new wave of legislative map-drawing that has increasingly eliminated competitive districts.
Kagan, who has dissented in those cases, also took aim at the majority for striking down campaign finance restrictions and, as she put it, the "evisceration" of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act that was enacted to protect minority voters.
"Part of the reason why the court got it wrong was a kind of lack of the appropriate concern or understanding of the consequences of their decisions," she said in remarks at Catholic University's law school in Washington, D.C.
"I do think in all these areas the court has blinded itself to the very deleterious effects of their rulings on how the political system works and has created a democracy that doesn't work as well as it should," she added.
Kagan was referring in particular to the 2019 ruling that said federal courts could not intervene to limit extreme partisan gerrymandering. She also mentioned a series of rulings that have gutted the Voting Rights Act, including
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Oct 20, 2026
Waves continue to hit homes on Oct. 13 in Long Beach. Storm waves have affected the Long Beach peninsula in recent weeks, causing damage to coastal homes. (Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)As ocean levels rise, waves crash farther inland and the coast continues to crumble, Southern California is on track to lose 30 to 70% of its beaches over the next several decades. Almost half of all beach cliffs are likely to retreat by 30 to 80 feet by 2100. And a 1.6-foot increase in sea level rise by 2060 will leave low-lying coastal areas including the ports and Santa Monica, Venice and Redondo beaches particularly vulnerable to floods and storms, with one estimate predicting 15,000 people exposed in Los Angeles County.
Those are just some of the dire findings in California's Fifth Climate Change Assessment, a state-commissioned report that comes out every several years and details how climate change is expected to affect everything from public health to animal habitat to central touchstones of the California way of life.
"There are things in there that are hard to digest, and hard to wrap our heads around," said Abby Edwards, senior deputy director for the Governor's Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation, which led the assessment. "I just hope that this can be a call to action to make sure we are still really doubling down on all of our climate mitigation goals."
The report updates the picture for California's hotter future with a projected 4-degree Fahrenheit increase in average temperatures and 50% longer heat wa
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Oct 20, 2026
Washington — President Trump on Tuesday announced the federal government will compensate whistleblowers who report people defrauding the U.S. government and taxpayers, but said he will decide who gets paid.
"I will be the arbitrator of all of these decisions," the president said during his Oval Office announcement with Vice President JD Vance, who heads up the administration's fraud task force, beside him. "In other words, I'll determine whether or not the person is deserving and I'll determine — and I will be very generous, believe me."
Through the Fraud Whistleblower Incentive Program, Mr. Trump said whistleblowers, who can be ordinary citizens, will be eligible to receive 1% of the amount of fraud they report, even if the reported fraud is $100 billion. America.gov/fraud, however, says successful whistleblowers will be paid up to $30,000, dependent upon the report resulting in criminal charges. Asked by CBS News for clarification, Mr. Trump said there is no limit to whistleblower compensation, and criminal charges aren't necessary.
"That's the answer. I quit while I'm ahead," Vance joked.
The president promised to be "fair" in his decisions.
"You'll get your money immediately, but I'll make the determination," he continued. "So if two people are fighting over it, maybe they'll split it or maybe whatever, but I'll make that determination."
The America.gov/fraud website says reports are encrypted and will go directly to the Treasury Department. It's not immediately clear who reviews reports, although the Department of Justice will administer the program.
The first person to benefit from the program is Nick Shirley, a 20-something YouTuber who
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Oct 20, 2026
By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON, Oct 20 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's administration has revoked over 300,000 US visas during his second term, the ?State Department said on Tuesday as the federal government continues its ?sweeping immigration crackdown.
The number showed an acceleration in the pace of visa revocations in recent ?weeks.
In an update issued on August 10, the State Department had put the number of visa revocations since Trump's current term began in January 2025 at over 175,000.
Trump says his immigration crackdown and deportation drive aim to improve ?domestic security. Rights advocates ?say the crackdown has violated due process and free speech rights and has created an unsafe environment, particularly for ?ethnic minorities, who have raised concerns about racial profiling.
In announcing the latest number on X, State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said the Trump administration "has revoked more ?visas at ?a faster pace than any administration ?in history."
Pigott said the administration ?had "zero tolerance for foreigners here on visas who break the law, commit fraud, or undermine our national security."
Among visa revocations particularly condemned by rights advocates are those of pro-Palestinian foreign protesters demonstrating against US ally Israel's attacks on Gaza and of foreigners over their social media comments about conservative ?commentator Charlie Kirk's assassination.
In addition to attempts ?to deport foreign protesters, the Trump administration has ?enforced tightened social media screening ?of immigrants and visa applicants.
Rights advocates say the government ?has deployed national security reasons to ?target critics and ?used isolated cases of fraud to broadly target immigrant communities such as the Somali American community in Minnesota.
While Trump campaigned in 2024 on ?stopping illegal immigration, his ?administration h
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