President Trump took the stage at Dalton Municipal Airport this afternoon to stump for Rep. Mike Collins against incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff, telling the crowd Georgia will "defeat your weak, arrogant, hate filled, radical left senator." Collins trails Ossoff by roughly nine points in the RealClearPolitics average, with Rick Jackson holding a slim edge over Keisha Lance Bottoms in the governor's race. Trump heads to Kentucky on Saturday as part of a closing campaign blitz the White House says is about protecting his agenda.
Katie Zacharia is leaving the White House press secretary job just days into her tenure, after Trump publicly told reporters he had urged her to "reconsider" the role given what he called vicious media treatment. The exit followed a rocky briefing-room debut and a wave of hostile coverage, including a vulgar monologue from Jimmy Kimmel that the White House fired back at hard. A permanent replacement has not been named.
The consumer price index rose 0.6% in September and 3.7% year over year, up from 3.4% in August and above the 3.6% economists expected. Gasoline alone jumped 9.1% for the month and accounted for more than half the total increase, a direct consequence of the nine-month Iran conflict keeping crude elevated. NEC Director Kevin Hassett called the energy-driven spike "temporary," while the Fed now faces inflation above target for 67 straight months.
Grocery giant Ahold Delhaize confirmed a cybersecurity incident inside its network and pulled systems offline, knocking out online ordering and digital coupons at Stop & Shop, Food Lion, Hannaford and Giant Food. Physical stores stayed open, but Food Lion's website and app went dark entirely as security teams worked the breach. The Dutch parent company runs more than 9,400 stores worldwide.
Trump confirmed the US is evaluating Iran's heavily fortified Pickaxe Mountain nuclear complex as a target, saying "we may have to go there" and "we'll knock it out fast." He ruled out nuclear weapons and American ground troops, but left conventional air strikes squarely on the table, with the Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb under discussion. CENTCOM's Adm. Brad Cooper says the US has already sunk Iran's navy and gutted its weapons factories.
The UK Maritime Trade Operations Centre logged twelve vessel attacks in the region this week, ten of them inside the Strait of Hormuz itself, plus one in the Arabian Gulf and one in the Gulf of Oman. Mine clearing and convoy protection continue, but commercial shipping remains the pressure point driving global energy prices. Houthi ballistic missiles have also struck Saudi oil infrastructure in recent days.
Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians in multiple West Bank villages on Friday, setting fire to trees and vehicles during the annual olive harvest. At least four Palestinians have been killed and more than one hundred injured since the harvest season opened earlier this month. Separately, attacks near the Maashiq palace in Aden, Yemen killed at least five and wounded more than a dozen.
The Crew-13 astronauts aboard the International Space Station are using microgravity to produce human stem cell-derived tissues, groundwork for personalized medicine and drug screening for heart disease and Parkinson's. The crew is also studying how long-duration weightlessness alters blood flow and testing a new inflight diagnostic device. The mission follows the first-ever ISS medical evacuation earlier this year.
Tesla unveiled its long-delayed next-generation Roadster at a SpaceX test site in McGregor, Texas, and the car hovered off the pavement during the livestreamed reveal. Tesla claims zero to sixty in under one second, with thruster technology borrowed from its rocket sibling. Analysts are now openly speculating about a Tesla-SpaceX merger before year's end.
Actress Selma Blair was arrested after an altercation with Delta crew members, and her attorney now says she had missed several doses of a powerful medication that controls severe neurological symptoms. Blair was restrained on a stretcher at the airport, where she allegedly freed a leg and kicked an officer. Her representative insists there is far more to the story than the arrest report shows.
