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With eight days until the midterms, President Trump rallied in Port Huron for Senate candidate Mike Rogers and gubernatorial candidate John James, blasting Democrat Abdul El-Sayed as a "jihadist" tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. Rapper Nicki Minaj joined him onstage and pledged she'd "continue to support you forever." Trump told reporters his rally blitz has "turned the whole thing around" on the map.
A federal appeals court is weighing the Justice Department's request to force California to set aside as many as 20,000 mail ballots tied to voters DOJ suspects may be noncitizens. Separately, Attorney General Todd Blanche defended a suit seeking to block certification of Alaska's Senate result if Sen. Dan Sullivan loses, citing a second candidate with a nearly identical name on the ranked-choice ballot. Trump called the Alaska system "crooked" and "illegal because it's unfair."
Trump announced from Perry, Georgia that Audi will build its first American factory in nearby Macon — a 1,500-acre site slated to produce 200,000 premium SUVs a year and create at least 4,500 direct jobs. Construction begins next month, with commercial production expected by 2031. The president credited his tariff regime and called it the largest investment in modern US auto history.
Annual inflation hit 3.7% in September as the producer price index jumped 1.3% — its biggest monthly move since March 2022 — driven largely by energy. Brent crude touched a five-month high near $117 a barrel on fears of renewed US strikes on Iran before settling at $116.72. One bright spot: business inflation expectations eased in October from 2.4% to 2.3%.
Trump is deciding whether to launch a final campaign alongside Israel against Tehran or cut a deal, and Iranians are stockpiling goods in anticipation. An intelligence memo obtained by Fox News says Iran has "substantially increased" efforts to target US personnel abroad, with some plots to kill Americans reaching "advanced stages." Trump re-endorsed Netanyahu ahead of Israel's Tuesday election with a call to "finish the job."
France's interior ministry counted roughly 410,000 demonstrators on Saturday — 110,000 in Paris alone — with 70,000 police deployed and more than 1,300 arrests amid tear gas, water cannons and sound grenades. The unrest has now spread to Albania, Spain, Italy, Belgium and Greece; Barcelona saw about 100 arrests and dozens of fires, a quarter of those detained being minors. Italy's Giorgia Meloni condemned "gangs of thugs" using the marches to "sow chaos."
Zelenskyy said he would agree to a peace deal freezing the war along current lines, a notable shift as US, Ukrainian and Russian negotiators prepare for technical talks in November, possibly in Abu Dhabi or Switzerland. Envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have been laying groundwork for a potential direct leaders' meeting. Moscow still demands territory it doesn't fully control, and Kyiv still wants enforceable security guarantees.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman laid out the agency's plan to put astronauts back on the lunar surface by 2028, with the stated goal of "long-duration stays" rather than flag-planting visits. The push follows Artemis II's crewed lunar flyby, from which NASA released hours of raw crew-to-science-team audio and nearly 12,000 images. Mars site-scouting missions are queued up behind it.
New research built on the Lancet Commission's definition of clinical obesity judges body fat by its actual effect on blood pressure, sleep and mobility rather than BMI alone. Applying that standard cuts pediatric obesity rates sharply, because many kids flagged as obese by BMI are fit, active and free of medical complications. It's a direct challenge to decades of screening practice.
Newly released Pentagon UAP documents describe two federal law enforcement agents on a clear-sky ridgeline watching a dark, nonreflective triangle with a 9-to-15-foot wingspan rise perfectly vertically for about ten seconds, hover without drift for twenty more, then accelerate away like a fighter jet — in total silence. Infrared showed a uniform thermal signature with no hot spots, engine heat or exhaust plume. Neither report identifies the object or its origin.
