With three days to go, candidates are fanning out across the battlegrounds as both parties fight for a Capitol Hill that's hanging by a thread — Democrats need a net of four seats in each chamber to flip the House (218–214 R) and the Senate (53–47 R). President Trump reversed course and restored in-person rallies in Iowa and Kansas while stacking roughly 20 tele-rallies onto his schedule. Michael Bloomberg dropped another nearly $36 million to boost Democrats, pushing his eleventh-hour blitz to about $116 million.
Third-quarter GDP expanded at a 3.4 percent annualized clip, beating forecasts and accelerating from the prior quarter's 2.2 percent. But annual inflation is still parked around 3.7 percent, the Fed held off on back-to-back hikes at its October 28 meeting, and traders now widely expect another quarter-point increase in December. Consumer confidence rebounded to a four-month high as gas prices eased, though purchasing power remains squeezed.
One person was killed and at least six others wounded in a shooting Friday night at a Spirit Halloween store in Fairfield, California. Police are investigating the attack, which came on the eve of Halloween with the store packed with last-minute shoppers.
A federal judge on Friday temporarily barred the Trump administration from threatening election workers with criminal prosecution over ballots tied to suspected noncitizens, finding likely violations of the Voting Rights Act. The ruling lands with just days left before Tuesday's midterms. Separately, the Public Interest Legal Foundation says it found 3,181 potentially dead voters and 693 duplicate registrations on Maine's rolls.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard said Saturday it is "closely monitoring America's movements in the region" and warned the conflict could spread if Washington and Israel pursue fresh military action, with Iran's supreme leader promising an "unrestricted response." Trump told reporters Friday that Iran "wants to talk" and predicted the war ends "very soon," claiming Tehran can't even pay its soldiers and police. Mideast leaders including Saudi Arabia are publicly calling for calm.
Evacuees from Russian-occupied Oleshky arrived in Belarus on Saturday, bound for Ukrainian territory, in a major rescue operation running under the most significant truce since Russia's full-scale invasion began. President Zelenskyy welcomed US approval for Ukraine to purchase 500 PAC-3 Patriot interceptors but pressed partners to pull the weapons from existing stockpiles to get them in place before winter.
The first million barrels of Venezuelan crude shipped under Trump's agreement with a partly US-government-owned producer reached Texas this week, capping a ten-month transformation of Caracas from adversary to de facto client state. Beijing's foreign ministry said it was "deeply shocked," condemning the use of force against a sovereign state — notable given Maduro met a Chinese envoy just hours before his capture. Opposition leader and Nobel laureate María Corina Machado says Venezuela will become America's greatest ally once its democratic transition is complete.
Astronomers running Rubin Observatory data through new search code flagged 2026 ED138, a trans-Neptunian object roughly 1,000 kilometers across orbiting about 46 times farther from the sun than Earth — more remote than Pluto. The Minor Planet Center has listed it as a dwarf planet candidate; if confirmed by infrared follow-up, it joins Pluto, Ceres, Eris, Haumea and Makemake. Researchers call a find this large a once-in-a-generation event.
NASA's Anil Menon and Canada's Joshua Kutryk spent seven hours and eleven minutes outside the International Space Station installing a roll-out solar array on the 2A power channel, which extended to full length in about ten minutes. It was the 100th US spacewalk at the station and the 285th overall. One more array goes up November 5, lifting available power by roughly 30 percent to support operations and the station's eventual controlled deorbit.
A Virginia man received an official rights-restoration certificate addressed to Biscuit Rigsby — his beagle-hound mix from Goochland County who died about five years ago, and who had, by all accounts, no criminal record. Del. Tom Garrett is demanding an investigation into Gov. Abigail Spanberger's vetting process; her office says the certificate was tied to a person with a date of birth and Social Security number, which the owner disputes. It follows the "Betty No Last Name" case in Chesapeake, and lands days before Virginians vote on a ballot measure making felon rights restoration automatic.
