The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved the use of two new pesticides that contain fluorinated substances commonly referred to as "forever chemicals" because they take centuries to break down in the environment.
Ukrainian intelligence reports that Russian Army General Oleg Leontievich Makarevich, accused of overseeing the destruction of Ukraine's Nova Kakhovka dam, is now heading a military advisory mission in Venezuela. Makarevich is in charge of more than 120 troops who are training Venezuelan forces on a wide range of military functions. Those activities are reported to be not in reaction to the current US military buildup in the region.
Last Thursday in Montgomery, the Alabama Public Library Service board voted to move any book that discusses "being transgender" out of children's and teen sections and into the adult stacks -- "weeded out of the collection or relocated," as the new language crisply puts it.
This past weekend, President Donald Trump announced that golf courses managed by the federal government at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland will be restored " a development that comes as millions of Americans are in the depths of an affordability crisis. The courses are offered to presidents, military officers, Department of Defense officials, and family members of those individuals, Reuters reports. Trump, an avid golfer, has described the courses as "a great place that has been destroyed over the years through lack of maintenance." Although Trump once claimed he would be "too busy" being president to play golf, he has found time to play the game most weekends since his return to office. Read more
Outgoing Mayor Eric Adams is weighing new appointments to the Rent Guidelines Board in an effort to block Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani's pledged rent freeze. But finding candidates willing to take the post -- and face the wrath of tenant groups -- could be a tall order.
After Donald Trump curiously started referring to the Department of Government Efficiency exclusively in the past tense, an official finally confirmed Sunday that DOGE "doesn't exist."
Steve Witkoff is teaching a master class to Russian officials on how to get what they want from Donald Trump. On Oct. 14, Trump's special envoy advised Vladimir Putin's top foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, on how the Russian dictator should curry favor with Trump before broaching a proposed peace plan between Russia and war-torn Ukraine, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday. During the five-minute call, Witkoff told Putin's henchman that the Russian president should personally phone Trump, 79, ahead of his planned meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky"where Zelensky hoped, but ultimately failed, to secure long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles" to congratulate him on the Gaza ceasefire.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has been personally linked to the brutal ICE raids sweeping America. Her 11-year-old nephew's mother, Bruna Ferreira, is now in custody at an ICE facility at Louisiana, facing deportation to Brazil. Ferreira is the former fiance of Michael Leavitt, the press secretary's New Hampshire-based brother. They had a son who they raised together before they split. Ferreira's sister, Graziela Dos Santos Rodrigues, has started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to fight the ICE charges and allow Bruna to remain in Boston. It has now raised over $14,000 of a $30,000 target.
The jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released last week found that while nonfarm payrolls increased by 119,000, there were 6,000 fewer manufacturing jobs, adding to the tally of 59,000 lost factory jobs since Trump's April vows to ignite domestic manufacturing. The Labor Bureau's data is consistent with the Institute for Supply Management November report, which indicated an eighth consecutive month of contracting manufacturing jobs. Read more
[Rep] Greene's farewell is only the latest evidence of the fissures that are beginning to appear in Trump's coalition. The party has also been riven by debate over the antisemitic turn of Tucker Carlson, who recently hosted the avowed white nationalist and Hitler admirer Nick Fuentes on his podcast, fueling fierce disagreements within both far-right media and Republican think tanks over whether to condone or "cancel" Carlson for his views.
A court official has dismissed a Justice Department complaint that accused a federal judge of "hostile and egregious" misconduct during hearings for a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump's ban on transgender troops serving in the military. The complaint accused U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes in Washington, D.C., of inappropriately questioning a government lawyer about his religious beliefs and of trying to embarrass the attorney with a rhetorical exercise during a February hearing. In a Sept 29 order that wasn't made public until Monday, Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit dismissed the complaint. Srinivasan said a motion for Reyes' recusal would have been the proper means for the Justice Department to contest her impartiality and seek her removal from the case.
CISA has warned that state-backed snoops and cyber-mercenaries are actively abusing commercial spyware to break into Signal and WhatsApp accounts, hijack devices, and quietly rummage through the phones of what the agency calls "high-value" users.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wants to meet President Trump "as soon as possible" " possibly over Thanksgiving " to finalize a joint U.S.-Ukrainian agreement on the terms for ending the war, Zelensky's chief of staff Andriy Yermak told Axios.
Why it matters:
U.S. and Ukrainian officials have agreed in principle on most aspects of the plan, which has been modified heavily from the initial 28-point U.S. proposal. But Zelensky wants to negotiate on the matter of territorial concessions with Trump himself, Yermak said. Read more
A group of Democrats accused by Donald Trump of "seditious behavior" have said that the US president is using the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) against them as a "tool to intimidate and harass members of Congress". Read more
U.S. retail sales increased less than expected in September, suggesting consumer fatigue amid higher prices because of tariffs, though the moderation did not dampen economists' expectations for solid economic growth in the third quarter.
