Trump said Saturday it was "time for Ukraine to get a new president," blasting Zelenskyy for authorizing strikes on Russian oil refineries and warning "he'd better d--- well stop." The president confirmed Washington negotiated a deal with Moscow temporarily suspending Russian diesel export restrictions until April 7, a move he says will bring fuel prices down. Zelenskyy pushed back that the arrangement hands Russia fresh revenue for the war, and Mike Pence called the sanctions relief a "betrayal."
The S&P 500 rose 0.64% Friday to 7,811, within a whisker of its 7,818 all-time high, with the Dow up 0.83% to 51,654 and the Nasdaq up 0.64%. Crude swung between roughly $97.80 and $106 on the week before settling near $103, with bond yields and oil driving most of the volatility. Pump prices remain near 2026 highs, and the New York Fed's latest consumer survey shows more households saying they're worse off than a year ago.
A riot erupted in Chicago's downtown Loop on Friday, leaving at least eight people shot, one fatally, and multiple police officers attacked. Six of the victims were children, including a 13-year-old, two 14-year-olds, a 15-year-old, a 16-year-old and a 17-year-old. Trump said Governor Pritzker and Mayor Johnson are "refusing Federal Government help for a situation that could be quickly remedied."
Trump petitioned the Supreme Court to reinstate his civil suit alleging Clinton, the DNC and others conspired to spread the discredited Steele dossier narrative. Lower courts called the case "frivolous" and ordered Trump and attorney Alina Habba to pay nearly a million dollars in sanctions. The new filing argues the filing deadline should have been paused while he served as president.
Iran-backed Houthi forces struck King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on Saturday, killing at least 12 people and wounding more than 300, overwhelming nearby hospitals and shutting down the kingdom's busiest aviation hub. Asked whether the US would join Saudi retaliatory strikes, Trump said, "We may. We're going to look at it. We move very quickly." Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned the attack and confirmed the American death.
Polish police said Sunday they received information about a possible plot targeting Tusk and Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz. Security services, police and Interior Ministry officials convened an emergency meeting at 11 a.m. local time. The warning lands in an already jittery week for Poland after three school attacks in four days in Mazovia province.
The 71-year-old pontiff revealed after his Angelus prayer in St. Peter's Square that doctors found a lung nodule at a "very early stage" and that he'll have it removed in the coming days. Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said the procedure is planned for this week at Rome's Gemelli Hospital with about a one-week hospital stay. The Vatican has not said whether the nodule is cancerous; the American pope had no previously known health problems.
The interstellar visitor first spotted by a Chilean ATLAS telescope has brightened far more than any ordinary comet as it neared perihelion, and it's turned bluer than the sun, which is the opposite of what dusty comets do. Revised estimates put it at over 33 billion tons and at least 3.1 miles across, orders of magnitude more massive than the two prior interstellar objects. Harvard's Avi Loeb keeps arguing its trajectory looks "designed" and that an artificial origin can't be ruled out, which most astronomers firmly dispute.
A new NIH clinic in Bethesda, Maryland opened October 5 to evaluate patients who believe they were harmed after vaccination, with government doctors investigating causes and treatments. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced further changes October 8, including CMS reimbursing physicians for the time spent filing suspected vaccine-injury reports to VAERS. Vaccine researchers broadly welcome more safety data but question whether the effort stays scientifically independent.
August Hanning, who ran Germany's BND foreign intelligence service from 1998 to 2005, was ordered into pre-trial detention over roughly 2,000 classified documents, facing espionage and attempted treason charges. Investigators are examining whether he sold "analysis" to Azerbaijan and possibly China, including a decades-long friendship with Chinese army Major General Wang Jianzheng, who thanked Hanning for his "insights and explanations" in a 2017 book. Hanning denies everything; his lawyer says he's "being unjustly persecuted."
