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"Politically, there’s just a recognition that it’s always going to be hard to win a midterm when you have the White House, the Senate and the House," Vance said in an interview with NBC News. (Brandon Bell / Getty)

JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. — Vice President JD Vance acknowledged Thursday that Republicans face an “uphill climb” in next month’s midterm elections — and that the results may be a data point he reviews as he decides whether to run for president in 2028.

“Historically there’s always a bit of an uphill climb, and I think you definitely sense that,” Vance said in an interview with NBC News. “I also think you can sense a sense of cautious optimism, in the sense that, you know, people feel like the numbers are sort of moving, maybe in our direction.”

He added: “Politically, there’s just a recognition that it’s always going to be hard to win a midterm when you have the White House, the Senate and the House.”

Vance spoke aboard Air Force Two shortly after it landed on a return trip from Lakeland, Florida, where he campaigned for Sen. Ashley Moody and Rep. Byron Donalds, the Republican nominee for governor. It was his latest headlining gig at a rally meant to boost support for the party’s candidates in what is expected to be a challenging year for the GOP.

Aside from the historical trends Vance mentioned, polls have shown President Donald Trump and the war in Iran highly unpopular among voters. A related rise in gas prices has added to a cascade of affordability concerns. And Americans are growing more skeptical of artificial intelligence and the large, power-hungry data centers being built to accommodate the technology. All of those issues could factor into voters’ choices in this fall’s key races for the House, the Senate and governor.

Vance speaks to Republican gubernatorial candidate Rep. Byron Donalds in Lakeland, Fla., on Thursday. (Kevin Lamarque / Pool via Getty )

Vance, 42, has said consistently that his focus is on his job as vice president and on helping his party through the midterms — and that any decision about running to succeed Trump in 2028 won’t come until after then.

Asked Thursday whether a poor showing for Republicans on Nov. 3 would factor into his thinking, Vance replied: “You make these decisions by collecting as much information and trying to make a wise decision. And yeah, I mean, regardless of what happens over the next 35 days, there will be new information, new things you have to make a decision over.”

Could substantial GOP losses convince him that the climate might not be favorable for him to run for president? Vance was noncommittal.

“Right now, I try not to think too much in hypotheticals,” he said. “I’m just going to try to do as well as I can and encourage people to elect the candidates that I think are good. The American people make that decision, and when they do, then yeah, I’ll have some new information to consider.”

Vance was more eager to assess a prospective rival: Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Cruz said in a recent interview with MS NOW that Vance does not have a lock on the 2028 nomination and spoke of wanting to “certainly be part of the discussion.” He also has framed the future of the party as a choice between being a “small-government, free-market conservative party” or a “big-government, nanny state party.”

Vance said Cruz’s efforts to engineer a clash don’t bother him.

“It is really obvious to me that, at this very moment, Ted Cruz is running for president,” Vance added. “At this moment, I’m not. I’m trying to help elect Republicans. That’s what I’m going to keep on doing.”

Cruz, who is not up for re-election to the Senate this year, has been raising money and campaigning for midterm candidates — not only in Texas but also in states like Iowa and South Carolina. Both are traditionally placed early on the GOP’s presidential caucus and primary calendar.

Cruz also is expected to campaign this month for Sen. Dan Sullivan in Alaska, as well as Republican Senate candidates Ken Paxton in Texas and Michael Whatley in North Carolina.

“Senator Cruz has been focused on electing Republicans up and down the ballot this November, and he will continue campaigning vigorously over the next several weeks to help make that happen,” a spokesperson said in a statement to NBC News.

In the interview, Vance tackled several of the issues that have become central to the midterm elections. He acknowledged frustration over high gas prices and said it was a topic he and Donalds discussed backstage at Thursday’s rally in Florida.

Vance also reiterated a message he has been delivering on Capitol Hill and across the country. Republicans, he said, can’t pretend things are perfect, but they can highlight their successes while they accuse the past Democratic administration of leaving them a mess and arguing that the next wave of Democrats would be worse.

“I think people recognize that the message is starting to penetrate a little bit — that we are solving problems the Democrats created and the Democrats are running a lot of crazy people,” Vance said. “I do get a sense that message is penetrating. Obviously, we’re going to find out in about 35 days whether that carries the day.”

Asked whether blame targeted at the Trump administration — which has now been in office for more than a year and a half — is justified, Vance acknowledged that such frustrations may exist.

“Voters are impatient, right? They ultimately make the decision,” he said. “We have to make the argument as best as we can. And what I honestly think is that we inherited a remarkably tough situation. … But I think that our approach is to brag about the victories, talk about the great accomplishments.”

Vance also wrestled with two of the hottest-button issues this campaign season: data centers and AI.

On data centers, Vance took something of a middle-ground stance.

“I certainly think that there are local apprehensions,” he said. “I think in some cases the companies building the data centers have done a good job of ensuring the community shares the benefits and ensuring prices don’t go — power, electricity prices don’t go up. And then in some communities, obviously, you don’t see that happening, and you see more of a pushback.”

His stance is more nuanced and tonally different than Trump’s. In an August post on Truth Social, the president likened data centers to a “Golden Goose” and charged that people opposing their construction “want to end up being backwards and poor.”

On AI, Vance has been both enthusiastic and cautious, having recently raised concerns about cybersecurity and its use in war. In the interview, the vice president noted recent alarm over how fast the technology is advancing and the fear that it will bring the end of human existence, drawing comparisons to the early days of the Covid pandemic.

“Actually, I felt a little bit like I did with Covid, where it seemed like there was a significant panic. The risk is real, just like it was with Covid, but the remedy was not necessarily appropriate or tailored to the risk,” Vance said. “And specifically, when I see people who quite literally have developed models that are good at hacking into other people’s software coming and saying, ‘Oh, my God, we’ve unleashed Frankenstein into the wild; the government should help us’ — well, one of the ways the government has to help is by ensuring that people who release Frankenstein into the wild suffer some consequences for it.”

He added a moment later: “My fear with AI right now is that we respond not by forcing more responsibility on the companies that are creating the products but by creating a regulatory regime that actually shields them from liability and in the process doesn’t deal with the real risk.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

This article originally appeared on NBC News at https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/jd-vance/vance-2028-ted-cruz-midterm-climate-future-rcna600312

For well over an hour, the state of Tennessee tried to kill Christa Pike. Then they raced to save her life.

Seven members of the news media who witnessed Pike's botched execution on Sept. 30 described an increasingly troublesome scene in the death chamber at a state prison in Nashville. The process began with Pike's last words, and ended with the state closing curtains in the viewing chamber and ordering the witnesses to leave even as they could hear Pike snoring on what was supposed to be her death bed.

Pike had survived two doses of pentobarbital, the second of which is considered a backup in case the first doesn't prove lethal. The state's execution protocol has no guidance for what happens when two doses fail, something that hasn't happened in the history of lethal injections in the U.S., according to experts and a USA TODAY review of previous botched executions.

Pike's failed execution, Tennessee's second in just four months, is raising questions about the state's ability to carry out the death penalty and drawing increased scrutiny to the constitutionality of the method nationwide.

As questions swirl about what happened to Pike and what is next to come, USA TODAY has compiled a timeline of chaos in the death chamber:

Curtains open, last words: 7:26 p.m. PT

At 7:26 p.m. CT, media witnesses say that prison officials opened the curtains to the death chamber at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. Pike was strapped down to the execution gurney, an IV line had been inserted into her right arm, and her spiritual adviser was by her side, reported Will Puckett of WVLT-TV.

Warden Kenneth Nelsen asked Pike if she had any last words before her lethal injection.

"I’m going to leave this world the way I spent most of my life and that is with love," Pike said, according to Damon Lawrence, a reporter with Roane County News. "She said she loves the people who are angry with her just as much as she loves the people who are on her side. She said, 'I’m at peace and I’m ready to go.'"

Pike also said she was "ready to be free" and that "this is a happy day," Associated Press reporter Kim Chandler said.

'My arm feels like it’s about to burst open': 7:34 p.m. CT

Witnesses did not share the exact moment Pike began receiving the first dose of pentobarbital but they may not have known when that was. At some point it became clear that Pike was reacting to the drug, they reported.

"My arm feels like it's about to burst open," Pike said at 7:34 p.m. CT, according to WKRN journalist and Tori Gessner.

"I saw a tear roll down her right eye and then she said, 'One spot is really throbbing,'" Puckett said.

Three minutes later, Puckett said Pike "took four separate significant breaths large enough to where you could see her body rising at points, sort of on and off the gurney."

At 7:39 p.m., he said, Pike lifted her head and looked at the IV in her arm.

"I do want to note that almost the entire time she was kicking her feet so often that she was actually knocking the sheet that laid over her off," he said, adding that a corrections employee had to put it back on her. "Her jaws were moving at 7:43. At 7:44 she took a deep breath, said something I couldn't hear. At 7:45 she took a very large yawn."

Gessner said: "We all looked at each other like, 'She’s still alive.'"

State closes curtains on execution: 7:46 p.m. CT

With Pike still alive and "clearly snoring" at 7:46 p.m. CT, the state closed the curtains between the execution chamber and the witness room, the reporters said.

They were closed for about three minutes, presumably to administer the second dose of pentobarbital, Chandler of AP reported.

When they opened again at 7:49 p.m.: "She was snoring very loudly at that point − mouth open snoring," Gessner said.

Puckett said he saw Pike's lip quiver and that at 7:51, it sounded "like she was almost choking."

"At 7:54 she let out a loud grunt, lifted her head up, her mouth opened, the snoring then began again," he said. "Just before 7:56 her body lifted off the gurney again, both her head and her legs sort of like in a V-shape almost."

He said Pike let out a heavy sigh at 8:01 p.m. and that four minutes later at 8:05 p.m., "her body flexed as she gasped for air."

That's when "the curtain was abruptly drawn the second time."

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Curtains go back down for good: 8:05 p.m. CT

Prison officials lowered the curtains again at 8:05 p.m. CT, witnesses said. They kept them down for nearly 50 minutes as the witnesses sat confused and hearing Pike's snores and breaths.

"We could not see what was happening," reported John North, an investigative reported at WBIR-TV. "We heard activity but we don't know what happened. We're not sure that's appropriate and that's a question we'd like answered."

At 8:53 p.m., Puckett said the microphone in the death chamber was cut off and that Warden Nelson said: "Will the witnesses please exit the area."

As the witnesses were describing what they experienced to other members of the news media outside the prison, emergency vehicles arrived. One of them took Pike to a hospital to get medical care, according to the Tennessee Supreme Court, citing the state.

Pike is in critical condition, attorneys say

The state of Tennessee had released no information about Pike's medical condition as of 5:30 p.m. CT, nearly 21 hours after the state ordered witnesses out of the death chamber. USA TODAY sent urgent messages to representatives at Gov. Bill Lee’s office and the Department of Corrections both on the night of the botched execution and on Thursday, Oct. 1, and has received no response.

But Pike's attorneys said that she was still alive, in critical condition and "receiving lifesaving medical care" as of Thursday afternoon.

"Christa has endured punishment greater than any other person in the history of the American death penalty," Randy Spivey, one of Pike’s attorneys, said during a news conference. He called on Lee to commute Pike's death sentence immediately.

"The incompetence of the Tennessee DOC sets the bar at the lowest level,” Abraham Bonowitz, co-founder of Death Penalty Action, said in a statement. “There are no other words. This is an outrage. How do they sleep at night?"

The night of the botched execution, the reporters who witnessed the debacle were beginning to observe just how unusual the events of the day were.

"None of it was normal," Catherine Sweeney of WPLN-TV told reporters afterward. "I covered all the executions last year and most of the ones this year. We haven't seen anything like it."

Puckett said that "from the get-go, this seemed very out of sorts." And Gessner: "Nothing about today was normal."

Lee talked to reporters on Thursday morning after he spoke at the grand opening of an education center and helped cut a giant blue ribbon to a round of applause.

Lee said he did not know what Pike’s condition was but said he was “highly disappointed” and called the botched execution a tragedy.

“There is no one that wanted what happened last night to happen,” he said. “It shouldn't have happened."

Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime and courts reporter who covers the death penalty, cold cases and breaking news for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Chaos in the death chamber: Timeline of Christa Pike's botched execution

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY at https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2026/10/01/christa-pike-botched-execution-tennessee-timeline-witnesses/92036365007/

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 29: U.S. President Donald Trump waves after speaking during the America.gov launch event at Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium on September 29, 2026 in Washington, DC. The website features an artificial intelligence tool to help Americans interact with the federal government. The event was attended by tech leaders Elon Musk, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp, along with U.S. Vice President JD Vance and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images) | Image Credits:Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images

In December 2025, about a month before the U.S. invaded Venezuela and captured its president, Nicolás Maduro, President Trump had a secret meeting with Elon Musk, Time magazine reports. This was roughly seven months after Musk left his role in the Trump administration at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

During this meeting, Trump “spent hours” talking to Musk’s Grok chatbot, including asking how Venezuelans would respond to the capture of their president, a source told Time. Just a few months earlier, in September, Trump began ordering U.S. military strikes against Venezuelan boats that Trump alleged were involved in drug trafficking.

People had apparently been turning to Grok asking about the boat strikes and political climate in Venezuela, as The Atlantic reported at the time. So Grok told Trump that Maduro was a “deeply unpopular dictator and that many Venezuelans would likely celebrate his downfall,” Time reported.

When such celebrations indeed happened after the U.S. invaded on January 3, Trump apparently “came away thinking Grok was ingenious,” that source told Time.

So perhaps it should come as no surprise that in June of this year, the Pentagon’s head of AI said that the military used Grok Gov to deploy and strike targets during the Iran War.

While Grok isn’t the only AI model serving the DoD (OpenAI also has an agreement and Anthropic has been in a back-and-forth over how its models can be used for military intelligence and in modern warfare), Grok may become an even bigger favorite under this administration. Earlier this week, the Pentagon announced that Musk and Anduril’s Palmer Luckey have been tapped to co-lead a study about how advanced technology is, and can be, used in battlefields.

This article originally appeared on TechCrunch at https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/musk-ai-chatbot-grok-reportedly-210811943.html

A judge on Thursday permanently dismissed the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool vandalism case against former Olympian David Hearn, who was accused of damaging the costly $14 million renovation project in June.

D.C. Superior Court Judge Todd Edelman’s ruling marks the end of a monthslong legal battle that included President Donald Trump criticizing U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro after she moved to voluntarily dismiss the federal charges in late July.

Unlike Pirro’s decision, Thursday’s ruling was made with prejudice, meaning the Department of Justice (Doj) cannot refile the same charges against Hearn.

Edelman rejected prosecutors’ request to preserve the possibility of recharging Hearn if new evidence surfaced, finding that existing investigative findings were sufficient to show the damage stemmed from a flawed renovation job.

Trump Says He 'Disagrees 100%' With U.s. Attorney Jeanine Pirro Over Reflecting Pool Case

David Hearn was accused of damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in June.

"In the exceptional circumstances posed by this case, the government has no right to retain the ability to compound the errors it has already made, or even to threaten to do so, at Mr. Hearn’s expense," Edelman said. "This case must be dismissed with prejudice, and the government must thus be barred from reinstituting this charge against Mr. Hearn."

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Hearn’s counsel described the decision as a victory for "an innocent American seeking justice."

"This case never should have been brought in the first place. This was a miscarriage of justice, and what happened to Mr. Hearn is an outrage that should shock every American," Hearn’s counsel said in a statement.

"This administration chose to pursue an unjust prosecution against Mr. Hearn. It should not get repeated chances to wield the power of criminal prosecution against someone who should never have been prosecuted."

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment. 

White House Asks Doj To Consider New Prosecution In Reflecting Pool Case

President Donald Trump previously urged U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro to reconsider the Justice Department’s decision to drop vandalism charges against former Olympian David Hearn.

Hearn was arrested June 19 and later indicted on one felony count of destruction of property for allegedly damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool’s lining.

Prosecutors alleged that Hearn was seen grabbing and tugging on a loose section of the pool’s coating, reportedly causing about $1,000 in damage. Officials added that he continued to do so even after National Park Service employees urged him to stop.

Trump Doubles Down On Reflecting Pool Vandalism Allegations, Cites New Witness Account

Former Olympian David Hearn, left, walks with his attorney, Norman Eisen, to speak to reporters gathered after his arraignment at Moultrie Courthouse July 9, in Washington, D.C. A D.C. judge on Thursday permanently dismissed the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool vandalism case against the former Olympian.

Trump has strictly maintained that the pool was vandalized, criticizing Pirro’s decision to drop the case as "hastily made."

"Anybody who thinks the Reflecting Pool wasn’t vandalized should go back to Law School!" Trump previously said in a post on Truth Social.

"People were on their knees with their hands in the water at the exact location of the ‘slashes.’ Additionally, there were witnesses to the VANDALISM, and the flexible areas of the material were cut with a knife."

The Lincoln Memorial and the Reflecting Pool as seen from the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C.

The DOJ moved to dismiss the indictment after evidence from the Department of the Interior revealed that the damage was caused by a "rushed and botched" installation by contractor Atlantic Industrial Coatings ahead of the America 250 celebrations, court filings said.

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According to the documents, Hearn touched peeling perimeter "overspray" material that was already peeling and had minimal economic value.

Hearn subsequently requested that the case be dismissed with prejudice, permanently barring the government from refiling the charges.

Original article source: Judge permanently dismisses Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool vandalism case against former Olympian

This article originally appeared on Fox News at https://www.foxnews.com/politics/judge-permanently-dismisses-lincoln-memorial-reflecting-pool-vandalism-case-against-former-olympian

The Trump administration is airing campaign-style television ads using money Congress approved for border security upgrades, efforts to combat drug trafficking and memorials for officers killed in the line of duty, according to federal spending records.

Democrats say the ads break multiple federal laws by using taxpayer money for political purposes that Congress never authorized. The White House defends the ads as public service announcements.

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One of the spots closely resembles a 30-second video produced by the Trump campaign in 2024. The latest ad features President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth advocating for the Iran war. They feature disclosures saying they are “Paid for by the U.S. Government.”

On Sept. 19, a few days before the ads began airing, the White House Office of Management and Budget added $20 million to a Department of Homeland Security budget line designated for “commemorative events,” according to publicly disclosed OMB data. Congress approved the spending for those events in Trump’s 2025 domestic spending package, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill, and intended it for “Line-of-Duty death memorials, Department or agency anniversaries, and commendation ceremonies,” according to a House budget committee report.

The next day, Sept. 20, DHS awarded a $20 million contract for a “national media campaign” to the LMD Agency, a Maryland-based public relations and media firm that had previously worked for the department. The company did not respond to requests for comment.

DHS and OMB had originally planned to spend only $1 million on “commemorative events,” according to OMB records. To add $20 million to that budget line, OMB drew on almost $6.7 billion that the law allocated to Customs and Border Protection. The law specified seven other uses for the money: new inspection equipment for ports of entry; air and marine response capabilities; border surveillance upgrades; biometric technology; screening people crossing the border; screening unaccompanied children; and enhanced border security targeting drug trafficking.

“In order to use this fund for anything, you have to point to one of the eight things in this list and say, ‘I’m doing that because Congress has said you have this money for one of these things,’” said Cerin Lindgrensavage, a lawyer with Protect Democracy, an advocacy group that frequently sues the Trump administration. “The problem is this discrepancy between what ‘commemorative events’ meant when the House was sitting down and putting the full language together and passing it, which was memorials and commendation ceremonies and such, and what these ads actually are.”

She added: “From our perspective, to the extent these ads are propaganda, there really isn’t funding that has a permissible purpose that would include their use.”

A White House spokesperson, who did not identify themself, described the ads as educational and patriotic and referred questions to OMB and DHS. A DHS spokesperson said the agency makes contracting decisions in accordance with applicable laws.

Since the 1950s, congressional appropriations have routinely prohibited using federal funds for “publicity or propaganda purposes.” The Government Accountability Office has interpreted those restrictions to cover, among other things, communications that are “purely partisan” and “designed to aid a political party or candidates.”

“Using government funding to create or air political ads like the ones that have been running over the last few days is illegal and a shockingly corrupt misuse of taxpayer dollars,” Sens. Patty Murray (D-Washington) and Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) said in a letter Tuesday to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. “… This administration’s defense of using Americans’ tax dollars to air these ads is as absurd as it is offensive.”

Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said the ads could also violate the Hatch Act’s bar against using official authority to influence elections, the Antideficiency Act’s prohibition against spending federal money without congressional authorization, and criminal statutes against embezzling or stealing public funds.

“Stealing taxpayer dollars to pay for Mr. Trump’s narcissistic ego trips is plainly illegal,” Raskin and Rep. George Whitesides (D-California) said in a letter Wednesday requesting a GAO investigation.

The White House has indicated the ads will not stop and will instead expand. Officials argue the ads aren’t political because they don’t explicitly tell people to vote or take any other action and Trump is not on the ballot. Trump has repeatedly told his supporters to vote as if he were.

The White House pointed to government-funded education campaigns under previous administrations, one of which the GAO found did violate the anti-propaganda law. There is no precedent for using government money to air political ads in an election season.

The backlash includes a cease-and-desist letter from Christian Berishaj, the artist known as JMSN, whose song “Love Me” was featured in one of the ads without his permission. Lawyers for the artist said the ad infringed on his copyright and falsely suggested he is affiliated with the administration.

Super PACs led by Trump advisers have spent more than $185.8 million on ads for the midterms, according to AdImpact data. The flagship super PAC, MAGA Inc., had $415.8 million as of Aug. 31, according to the Federal Election Commission, and Trump claimed to have about as much in an allied nonprofit group.

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This article originally appeared on Washington Post at https://washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/10/01/trump-ads-use-money-border-security-slain-officers-memorials/

Christa Pike, the only woman on Tennessee's death row, received two doses of a lethal drug in a Nashville execution chamber Wednesday night. But she didn't die. 

Although her survival was "unparalleled," as one expert said, it was the latest example of a botched execution attempt involving lethal injections in Tennessee and elsewhere around the United States.

"All of this was predicted, and the court did nothing," said Steve Ferrell, an attorney for Pike, at a news conference Thursday, referencing the state's history of problems with its lethal drug protocol.

Pike, 50, was condemned for the 1995 murder of her former classmate Colleen Slemmer, then 19, whom she and two others tortured and killed in a manner widely described as gruesome, horrific and disturbing. Eighteen at the time of the attack and 20 at her sentencing, Pike was the youngest woman sent to death row in the country's modern capital punishment era.

The extent of Pike's injuries after the failed execution was unclear, but her attorneys said Thursday that she was still alive and receiving "lifesaving medical care" at a hospital. A doctor told CBS partner BBC News that Pike would have likely suffered traumatic brain injury.

Her legal team had said in an emergency motion to halt the execution Wednesday night that she had not lost consciousness, retained a heartbeat and could be heard audibly snoring on the gurney, despite correctional staff administering two syringes' worth of the drug pentobarbital to her through an IV. At one point, Associated Press reporter Kim Chandler, who witnessed the execution, said Pike "looked toward prison officials and asked if it was supposed to feel that way." 

"The case of Christa Pike lays bare multiple reasons why the death penalty should be abolished," United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement on Thursday. "The prolonged suffering — physical and mental — arising from multiple failed execution attempts is abhorrent, and cruel. And there are key fair trial questions still unresolved."

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, whose denial of Pike's clemency petition this week allowed the execution to move forward, has since announced the state will cancel the one remaining execution scheduled to take place this year, so that "a comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred" on Wednesday night could be conducted.

A problematic history

Pike's bungled injection wasn't a first for Tennessee. Earlier this year, in May, the state halted the planned execution of death row inmate Tony Carruthers when officers failed to establish an IV line through which to administer his lethal injection, after trying to do so for more than an hour. 

At the time, Carruthers' attorney said he had been "tortured," telling CBS News that he groaned and bled from multiple attempted injection sites as staff tasked with handling the execution repeatedly punctured him in his chest, arms, feet and neck. 

The defense team representing Carruthers had asked a Tennessee district court to stop the execution, alleging the ordeal "constituted cruel and unusual punishment," in violation of his constitutional rights, but the request was denied on the grounds that a burden of proof to demonstrate the state's actions were "cruel and unusual" hadn't been met. 

Lee ultimately granted Carruthers a yearlong reprieve from execution, meaning that he'll return to the chamber a second time to be put to death after that. The governor said he wouldn't reconsider Carruthers' clemency petition, even as gaps in forensic evidence sparked public doubt over the legitimacy of the murder conviction for which he was sentenced to death.

Carruthers was among seven U.S. inmates whose executions by lethal injection failed because of issues establishing an IV line in the modern death penalty era, although researchers say other instances may exist. His attorneys' allegations of torture and unconstitutionally cruel punishment also echoed similar accusations from representatives of other inmates who've experienced botched execution attempts due to this problem. 

In addition to Tennessee, these incidents have happened in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Oklahoma and Texas, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, an organization that provides data on capital punishment but doesn't take a position on it. 

Pike's survival was "singular and unparalleled," marking the first execution where an inmate remained alive after receiving lethal drugs, versus other instances where failure to locate a vein ultimately prevented the drugs from being administered, Robin Maher, the Death Penalty Information Center's executive director, told the AP. In a statement, her organization drew connections between Pike's execution and that of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma in 2014, where Lockett appeared to survive the procedure but died of a heart attack while still in the execution chamber.

Tennessee resumed executions in 2025 after a three-year hiatus, triggered by controversy and criticism surrounding its execution protocol. Lee, in 2022, said the pause would allow for an investigation into its lethal injection process after it was determined that corrections officials didn't test the lethal drugs they'd planned to use for that year's execution of Oscar Smith for bacteria. That review led Tennessee to alter its lethal injection protocol, shifting from a procedure involving three different drugs to the current one used in Pike's case, consisting solely of pentobarbital. 

The Tennessee Department of Correction said it "followed every step of the State's lawful, established execution protocol" in a statement released after Pike's procedure. 

"The lethal injection chemical in the protocol has consistently been effective, and the protocol does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out this evening," the statement said. 

"Veiled in secrecy"

Experts and groups advocating against the death penalty have sounded alarms for years about issues with lethal drugs used in executions. Declining support for capital punishment nationwide and skepticism over how executions were being carried out led pharmaceutical companies over the last decade or so to cut ties with state corrections departments, which, in turn, struggled to acquire lethal drugs. 

Advocates have said this shift has contributed to increased incidents of lethal injections gone awry, accusing states of putting inmates to death with expired or untested chemicals. Because the details of execution protocols, within and outside of Tennessee, are frequently allowed to be kept secret, contesting them, legally, is difficult.

Pike's lawyers had raised concerns about Tennessee's protocol in appeals leading up to the execution, and Pike herself said she was "nervous" about how the procedure would play out in a letter that CBS News obtained from her spiritual adviser this week.

"I am not afraid to die. I'm only nervous about the process," said Pike in the letter, written Monday, before she learned Lee had denied her petition for clemency.

Her attorneys said the circumstances around Pike's execution proved their concerns had been valid.

"Tonight the State of Tennessee once again failed to carry out a lawful execution," they said in a statement. "We take no pleasure in being right, but the concerns raised by Ms. Pike proved to be true: difficult vein access, blown veins, degraded pentobarbital, no emergency medical care available when things inevitably go wrong, all under a protocol that remains veiled in secrecy."

This article originally appeared on CBS News at https://www.cbsnews.com/news/christa-pike-botched-execution-lethal-injection/

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military is dispatching roughly 9,000 troops aboard a group of ships to the Middle East, a U.S. official said Thursday. The bolstering of the American military presence comes as President Donald Trump warned anew that new strikes against Iran could be on the horizon.

The troop movement, which includes a third aircraft carrier, underscores the rapidly evolving dynamic of Trump's war against Iran as he ponders his next move, with midterm elections in the United States looming large and new signs that the nature of the conflict may be becoming more complex.

Trump has threatened that a post-midterm election escalation — despite his initial promises to Americans of a campaign that would last a matter of weeks — remains a viable option. Further complicating matters, Trump told reporters Thursday that early indications suggest that Iran is linked to the FlyDubai co-pilot who stabbed his captain and tried to crash an Israel-bound flight on Wednesday.

In an exchange with reporters at the White House, Trump raised the connection when asked by a reporter if there were any links between the pilot behind the attack and Tehran.

“I would say the answer, based on what I’m hearing, is ‘yes,’ but we’re working on it right now,” Trump said, without offering details.

Trump added that if the link to Iran is established, the United States would retaliate. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed in a Fox News interview earlier Thursday that investigators believe the FlyDubai suspect underwent “Islamist, radical indoctrination” but did not provide further details.

“Oh, they’ll be hit very hard, don’t worry," Trump said. “You just ask them. They know what happened. They’ll be hit very hard.”

Thousands of US sailors and Marines head to the Middle East

Meanwhile, the group of ships now en route to the Middle East together carry over 7,000 sailors and 2,000 Marines.

It includes the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group, which recently deployed with the cruiser USS Chosin, and the USS Makin Island amphibious readiness group, which includes the USS John P. Murtha and USS Anchorage amphibious landing ships.

It could mean that three carriers are in the region as early as the end of October, according to the U.S. official, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations.

Given the personnel already in place in the Middle East, the move would bring the U.S. naval presence to an unusually high number of more than 20,000 sailors and Marines as well as hundreds of aircraft. The Navy previously had three carrier strike groups in the Middle East in April for the first time since 2003.

The carriers USS George H.W. Bush and the USS George Washington are in the region now, along with the USS Boxer amphibious readiness group. The Washington is typically deployed to the Pacific Ocean, but it was moved to the Middle East to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln, whose arduous deployment resulted in the crew being at sea for more than 260 days straight.

Trump explains why he rejected Iran's latest truce proposal

Trump, in a Time magazine interview published Thursday, also raised the prospects of new strikes, saying it is “possible” that he will ramp up bombing in Iran after the Nov. 3 elections in the United States.

When pressed, Trump said he could not go into further detail about his strategy.

“I can’t tell you that because look, you know, you’re asking, where are you going to bomb?” Trump said.

He said in the interview, conducted Monday, that he rejected the latest ceasefire proposal from Iran because “things that I wouldn’t have approved a year ago I wouldn’t have today.”

Trump cited as an example an offer from Iran to “open up" the Strait of Hormuz, the key energy shipping corridor, but said the overall proposal was “not good enough.”

The war shows signs of getting more complicated

Asked if the increasingly unpopular war would threaten Republican Party chances in November, Trump at first responded, “It’s possible.” But then he added, “It should help, because Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.”

The president said “100% of the people” oppose Iran having nuclear attack capabilities “including worldwide.”

“So, when you say it that way, it would help,” Trump added. “If you don’t say that, it could hurt.”

Yet, there's also growing concern that Tehran might be turning to asymmetrical tactics following the FlyDubai attack and another suspicious incident in the U.K.

Authorities believe that Iran might be looking to shift strategy just as the U.S. finds greater success in loosening Iran’s grip over the Strait of Hormuz and getting Gulf allies' oil to market, while a Navy blockade is shutting down Iran’s own oil exports.

British authorities announced on Thursday the arrest of a dual U.K.-Iranian national on suspicion of plotting a terror attack following a security incident at a U.S.-run military air base in England that British authorities have linked to Tehran.

The arrest of the 27-year-old man in Central London came after U.K. authorities arrested five men, all British nationals in their 20s and from London, in the early hours of Sunday on suspicion of explosives and terror offenses close to the RAF Fairford air base

The base has been used by American bombers to strike Iran. The suspects have since been released on bail.

___

Madhani reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim and Will Weissert in Washington contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Associated Press at https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/us-moving-thousands-troops-aboard-183827057.html

Former Dallas police Officer Amber Guyger (center) in 2019 leaves the Frank Crowley Courts Building in downtown Dallas. (Tom Fox/Staff Photographer)

Former Dallas police Officer Amber Guyger has been granted parole after serving seven years in prison for the murder of Botham Jean.

Guyger fatally shot Jean, a 26-year-old accountant, in September 2018 after mistaking his apartment for her own. She told investigators she believed Jean was an intruder.

Jean’s killing drew protests in Dallas and national attention, particularly because Jean was an unarmed Black man killed in his own home by a white police officer.

A Dallas County jury convicted Guyger, now 38, of murder in October 2019 and sentenced her to 10 years in prison.

The Texas parole board confirmed Thursday to The Dallas Morning News that Guyger had been granted parole. She was previously denied in 2024.

It’s not immediately clear Thursday when she will be released from prison.

Here’s what to know about Guyger, Jean’s killing and what has happened in the years since.

What happened to Botham Jean? A large photo of Botham Jean is displayed with photos and cards on one of the tables in his childhood home in Castries, St. Lucia on Sept. 25, 2018. Botham Jean was shot and killed in his apartment by off-duty Dallas police Officer Amber Guyger. (Vernon Bryant/Staff Photographer)

Guyger and Jean lived one floor apart at the South Side Flats, an apartment complex a few blocks from the Dallas police headquarters in the Cedars. 

Guyger had finished a shift and was still in uniform when she returned to the complex on Sept. 6, 2018. She mistakenly parked on the fourth floor instead of the third floor, where she lived, and went to Jean’s apartment.

Jean was eating ice cream in his apartment when Guyger entered. She fired twice, hitting Jean once. Jean died at a hospital.

Guyger was arrested three days later and initially charged with manslaughter. Dallas police fired her later that month. A Dallas County grand jury later indicted her on a murder charge.

Jean, a native of St. Lucia, had moved to the U.S. to attend Harding University in Arkansas, before taking a job as an accountant in Dallas. He was active in his church and his family has said he hoped to eventually return to St. Lucia and become prime minister.

Related: Two stunning hugs end Amber Guyger's murder trial on a merciful note

Why was Guyger convicted of murder?

There was no dispute during Guyger’s 2019 trial that she shot Jean. The main question for jurors was whether she committed a crime when she did so.

Guyger’s attorneys argued she genuinely believed she had entered her own apartment and was confronting a burglar. Prosecutors argued her mistake didn't justify killing Jean.

Jurors found Guyger guilty of murder on Oct. 1, 2019.

The jury later sentenced her to 10 years in prison. She faced five years to life in prison.

Guyger appealed, arguing there wasn't enough evidence to support a murder conviction. She also argued that she should have been convicted of criminally negligent homicide, a lesser offense.

The Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas rejected those arguments and upheld her murder conviction in 2021. 

Why was Amber Guyger granted parole?

Guyger first became eligible for parole in 2024 after serving enough of her 10-year sentence to be considered for release.

The Texas parole board denied her parole that October. Jean’s family and the Dallas County district attorney’s office opposed her release, as did thousands of people who signed an online petition.

The board reconsidered Guyger this year and granted her parole Thursday. The board confirmed the decision to The News, but it wasn't immediately clear when Guyger would be released.

Parole doesn't overturn Guyger’s murder conviction. It allows her to serve the remainder of her sentence outside prison under state supervision and conditions set by the parole board.

Related: 'Excruciating:' Ex-Dallas cop Amber Guyger now eligible for parole in Botham Jean's murder

What happened in the civil case?

Jean’s parents and sister sued Guyger and the city of Dallas after his death.

The family accused Guyger of using excessive force and argued Dallas police policies and training contributed to Jean’s killing.

A federal judge ultimately dismissed the city from the case. Guyger remained the sole defendant when the lawsuit went to trial in November 2024.

Guyger, who was still imprisoned, didn't participate in the trial or hire an attorney.

A federal jury found Guyger civilly liable and awarded Jean’s family $98.65 million in damages. That included roughly $38.65 million in compensatory damages for losses including Jean’s future earnings, pain and suffering and his parents’ loss, along with $60 million in punitive damages.

Jean’s family said after the verdict that collecting the money from Guyger wasn't their main focus. The family has since turned its attention back to the city.

In March, Jean’s family sued Dallas in state court, arguing the city’s employee liability plan requires it to cover the judgment against Guyger because she was a city employee.

The lawsuit remains pending. The city has asked a judge to dismiss the case and has challenged whether the court has jurisdiction. A hearing on those arguments is scheduled for Nov. 19. A jury trial is currently set for June 2027, online court records show Thursday.

What happens now?

Guyger remains in state custody until Texas prison officials complete the process necessary for her release.

The parole board hasn't publicly announced when that will happen. Once released on parole, Guyger will be supervised under conditions imposed by the state while she serves the remainder of her sentence.

Her murder conviction remains in place. So does the $98.65 million civil judgment against her.

Jean’s family, meanwhile, continues its separate legal effort to make the city of Dallas responsible for paying that judgment.

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This article originally published at Amber Guyger granted parole: What to know about Botham Jean's killing and the case.

This article originally appeared on Dallas Morning News at https://www.dallasnews.com/news/public-safety/article/amber-guyger-parole-botham-jean-case-22458146.php

The Treasury Department said that over 60 million children have been automatically enrolled in Trump Accounts, according to guidance filed with the Federal Register. 

"Millions of children have already enrolled in Trump Accounts. With automatic enrollment, over 60 million more eligible children now have an account ready to be claimed," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.

Why are children being automatically enrolled? 

The idea behind Trump Accounts is to give children a head start on building wealth. The accounts are a new type of tax-deferred individual retirement account for children. Any eligible child under 18 with a valid Social Security number can open an account, while U.S. citizens born between 2025 and 2028 may also qualify for a one-time $1,000 contribution from the government. 

Until now, parents or guardians were required to sign up for accounts on their children's behalf. Participation has been low, however.

According to a study by the national nonprofit Commonwealth, participation rates remain low, with families citing concerns about the tax implications of these accounts, confusion about how to set one up, a lack of clarity about eligibility, and a lack of trust in the administration as reasons for not opening an account.

So far, just 5% of low- to moderate-income families eligible for a 530A Trump Account have actually opened one. 

Read more: Trump Accounts could help lower-income families most. Few have signed up.

"The complexity of eligibility criteria, contribution limits, income phaseouts, and withdrawal rules across more than a dozen accounts discourages participation, particularly among households with limited time, low financial literacy, or insufficient outside savings for emergencies," said Adam Michel, director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute, in a policy analysis. "The result is a system used primarily by those best equipped to navigate it."

Read more: Trump Account investment options, rules, and guidelines: What you need to know

Who is automatically enrolled, and how to claim your account 

Every eligible child under 18 with a valid Social Security number now has a Trump Account. It's up to parents and guardians to claim their child's account. 

Parents can claim an account and the $1,000 seed contribution for eligible children by downloading the official Trump Accounts app, verifying their identity and relationship to the child, reviewing the child's information, and accepting the account terms.

Read more: Trump Accounts app: How to sign up and get started

Keep track of your finances for free with My Money

This article originally appeared on Yahoo Personal Finance at https://finance.yahoo.com/personal-finance/investing/article/treasury-says-over-60-million-children-have-been-auto-enrolled-in-trump-accounts-171631006.html

A memorial at the site of the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in January.Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

The family of Renee Good, the woman killed by immigration agents in January in Minneapolis, filed two federal lawsuits against the agent who shot her and several top officials in the Trump administration on Thursday.

In the lawsuits, Good’s partner, Becca Good, and her brother, Brent Ganger, alleged wrongful death and other violations of federal law, according to a press release issued by their lawyers.

Good was a US citizen and mother of three who, on 7 January, joined her wife in protesting against the deployment of thousands of ICE agents in their city as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation policy.

The 37-year-old woman was shot and killed in her car by an agent who claimed he acted in self-defense, and the Department of Homeland Security claimed that she had engaged in “an act of domestic terrorism”. Multiple video clips of the encounter, however, show that Good was steering her vehicle away from the agent as she tried to drive away.

Related: ‘Unimaginable loss’: Renee Good family urges ‘empathy’ in call for justice

Her death and that of Alex Pretti, an American nurse who was also shot and killed by an immigration agent during Minneapolis protests two weeks later, sparked outrage and a wave of anger across the country.

Shortly after Good’s killing, Todd Blanche, then the deputy US attorney general, said he saw no grounds for opening a civil rights investigation. Days later, the justice department opened an investigation into the relationship between Becca Good, the deceased’s partner, and protest groups. At least 10 prosecutors resigned following the fatal shootings.

Now these lawsuits have become some of the first major civil litigation actions filed against Trump’s deportation campaign in Minnesota.

In one of them, the attorneys for Good’s wife and brother allege wrongful death and seek to recover – receive damages – for the “immense suffering Renee endured in the final moments of her life and for the profound and permanent losses that her death has inflicted upon her family”.

“The complaint also seeks to recover for Becca Good, who was standing feet from the couple’s vehicle when Ross fired three rounds into it, and she watched her partner die,” the complaint says.

“Peaceful assembly, speech and even dissent are protected rights. However, the government has distorted the exercise of these rights as violence against our republic and acted with extreme and unconstitutional force, causing egregious harm. Many of these illegal uses of force resulted in death – including the death of an American mother of three, Renee Good … Today’s legal actions demand accountability for countless violations of the law, the constitution and the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) own rules governing the use of force,” the lawsuit says.

The other lawsuit alleges a conspiracy to interfere with civil rights by senior federal officials and federal immigration enforcement agents, and names Jonathan Ross, the immigration officer who shot Good, the former homeland security secretary Kristi Noem, the White House deputy chief of staff and architect of hardline US immigration policies, Stephen Miller, and former US border patrol officer Gregory Bovino, among others, for their “roles in Renee Good’s death”.

Backlash against Trump’s anti-immigration campaign following the deaths in January led the president to withdraw agents from Minnesota, and there has been no other deployment of that kind to a major US city since then. However, investigations such as the one by the Guardian are showing that ICE is arresting more people than ever, while the administration shifted its tactics from “siege” to “soft feet”.

This article originally appeared on The Guardian at https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/family-renee-good-sues-ice-162224543.html

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON, Oct 1 (Reuters) - New applications for US unemployment benefits drifted close to 57-year lows last week and layoffs decreased in September, suggesting labor market stability persisted even as employers remained cautious about boosting hiring.

The report from the Labor Department on Thursday joined a raft of other data, including robust consumer spending in August, in painting a rosy picture of the economy despite ‌rising headwinds from the US-Israeli war with Iran, which has driven diesel prices to record highs. Economists said robust corporate profits growth and resilient domestic demand were shielding workers from layoffs, for now.

"At some point, ‌elevated energy costs and material prices will force firms to lay off marginal workers to protect profit margins, but there is no sign of that here," said Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits slipped 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 197,000 for ​the week ended September 26, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 200,000 claims for the latest week.

Claims have held below the 200,000 level for three straight weeks and are near levels last seen in 1969. Some economists said historically low layoffs, if sustained, could raise questions about the labor market overheating, with monetary policy implications.

"We do not appear to be close to that result yet, but this is a new risk that the FOMC appears to be watching," said Stephen Stanley, chief US economist at Santander US Capital Markets, referring to the Fed's policy-setting committee.

A separate report from global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas showed layoffs announced by US-based employers dropped 18% to 43,281 in September. They were down 20% ‌from a year ago and fell 43% in the third quarter. Employers are, however, ⁠in no rush to increase headcount.

Hiring plans increased by 90,787 last month. While that was sharply up from 12,325 in August, hiring intentions were down 23% from a year ago, and the tally was the lowest for any September since 2011. Challenger, Gray & Christmas said a surge in seasonal hiring typically seen starting in September was absent, adding that "companies are in ⁠a wait-and-see period."

The Federal Reserve last month raised its overnight benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to the 3.75%-4.00% range, the first hike in three years, and flagged further increases in borrowing costs in the months ahead. The odds of another rate hike this month were diminished by cooler-than-expected inflation readings in August and July.

Financial markets priced in a roughly 37.1% chance of further monetary policy tightening at the October 27-28 meeting, down from about 68.6% a week ago, CME's FedWatch tool showed.

But August's market-friendly inflation readings are ​unlikely ​to be sustained. An Institute for Supply Management survey on Thursday showed inflation pressures building up at the factory gate in September, ​with no commodities reported to have seen price declines. The survey's measure of input prices ‌jumped to 77.9 last month from 71.1 in August.

SUPPLY CHAIN CONSTRAINTS

Strong demand is running into capacity constraints, with supply chains stretched because of the war and tariffs.

"The longer energy-driven price pressures persist, the greater the risk that they feed through into broader consumer price pressures," said Thomas Ryan, senior North America economist at Capital Economics.

Comments from respondents to the survey were mostly negative and focused on pricing volatility, import tariffs, the Middle East conflict and increasing lead times.

Some transportation equipment manufacturers complained that "every month, we are faced with new headwinds created by this administration," alluding to the trade war with Canada, adding "the only thing that is predictable is the chaos that is created by these trade policies."

Others in the electrical equipment, appliances and components industry said "new tariffs against Canada have drastically increased costs for capital expenses as well as assemblies." Similar complaints were voiced by some makers of computer and electronic products who reported that the "US tariff schedule is providing ‌challenges."

Food, beverage and tobacco products manufacturers complained about higher fuel prices driving up "transportation costs and the overall cost of goods." While some ​makers of fabricated metal products reported strong orders, they said labor and steel shortages were "limiting our production output to meet demand."

Stocks on Wall ​Street were trading lower. The dollar advanced versus a basket of currencies. US Treasury prices fell, with the ​yield on the benchmark 10-year note hitting the highest level in 24 years.

The claims report showed the number of people receiving unemployment benefits after an initial week of aid, a proxy ‌for hiring, dropped 11,000 to a seasonally adjusted 1.701 million during the week ended September ​19. That was the lowest level in the so-called continuing ​claims since April 2023.

Still, some people who have lost their jobs are experiencing long spells of unemployment. A survey from the Conference Board on Tuesday showed the share of consumers saying jobs were "plentiful" dropped in September to the lowest level since February 2021, while the proportion who viewed jobs as "hard to get" was the highest in more than 5-1/2 years.

The claims data have no bearing on September's employment report as they fall ​outside the survey period. Nonfarm payrolls likely increased by 90,000 jobs last month after ‌advancing 162,000 in August, a Reuters survey of economists showed. The unemployment rate is forecast holding steady at 4.1% for a third straight month, in part held down by a smaller labor force ​because of retirements and an immigration crackdown.

"We continue to think the pace of layoffs will rise next year, in response to the recent tightening of financial conditions and growing adoption of AI by ​firms," said Samuel Tombs, chief US economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Andrea Ricci)

This article originally appeared on Reuters at https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/articles/us-weekly-jobless-claims-fall-124022508.html

JERUSALEM (AP) — A dentist and other passengers wrestled with a violent copilot. A plumber seized the controls as the plane plunged towards the desert. And the captain, despite being stabbed, managed to open the cockpit door — helping save all 182 people aboard the Israel-bound flight.

"Hollywood isn't creative enough to come up with stories like this!" said Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel.

Although major questions remained unanswered on Thursday about the attacker and his motive, the story of ordinary passengers saving the FlyDubai flight from disaster has quickly become the stuff of legend.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warmly embraced plumber Yaniv Hayoun shortly after the passengers arrived in Tel Aviv late on Wednesday. He later posted a five-star review of Hayoun's professional services, calling him "a hero who has saved many lives."

"He can help you too — I highly recommend him!" Netanyahu added on X.

Hayoun was among several Israelis recommended for the Presidential Award for Civilian Heroism, while Indian Capt. Smit Machchhar was called "a HERO" by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

One met the prime minister wearing a bloody shirt

Many of the details emerged in a rush shortly after the passengers, most of them Israeli, landed back home to cheers and waving flags.

Hayoun, apologizing for his bloody shirt, within minutes was telling the prime minister and journalists what happened.

There had been little time for him and the others to think. Passengers screamed after spotting the copilot stabbing the captain, and the flight from Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, to the Israeli city of Tel Aviv began a steep dive. Some believed they were about to die.

A handful of Israelis reacted, hurtling up the aisle after the badly wounded captain managed to open the cockpit door. That was crucial, as cockpit doors are typically locked to prevent hijackings.

They had to struggle, Hayoun said, with the captain's body resting against it.

The plumber seized the controls, just like in the movies

Hayoun said the copilot appeared to be trying to damage the plane's controls. He grabbed the copilot, and others began struggling with the man.

Hayoun then tackled the controls. He had no training, but he remembered what he had seen in movies.

"I asked him, how did you know how to do that? And he said, 'Well, I, I watched these air disaster films,'" Netanyahu told Fox News on Thursday.

It was not clear who among the passengers had security experience, though military service is compulsory for most men and women in Israel.

Soon, crew who had been traveling on the plane stepped in to stabilize it, issuing a mayday call and seeking a place to land.

"He managed to stabilize the plane by the skin of his teeth," another Israeli praised for intervening, Asaf Rajuan, told journalists. Aviation experts have marveled that the plane didn't crash after a descent so sharp that the rudder was torn away.

A dentist treated the wounded pilot

The handful of Israeli passengers grappled with the copilot for several minutes before subduing him and binding his hands with the cord from a set of headphones.

One of them, Dr. Shota Musayev, a dentist, also attended to the captain, who appeared to have lost a lot of blood. "He was just praying the whole time and was in contact with me, and I was afraid we would really lose him," Musayev said.

In video that Musayev shot and shared with The Associated Press, the captain lay on the floor of the cabin, saying his head was in pain.

Musayev later told journalists he and the other responders knew they'd had just seconds to act before a "critical event."

But even with the copilot bound and subdued, they were scared that other attackers might be on the plane. They sent other people around the cabin to stand by.

"We didn't know where we were going to land. Underneath us there was only desert. We were afraid that they were taking us to a hostile country," Rajuan said. "We didn't know who to trust. We didn't know if the pilot was with us or not … We started suspecting the flight attendants, too."

Finally, just about an hour after the plane issued a distress call, it made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia.

Now, investigators from across the region are working to understand what led to the attack. The copilot still has not been publicly identified.

As of Thursday evening, the world had not yet heard from the central hero, the captain, who India's Embassy in the United Arab Emirates said was "in good health and recovering well."

___

Associated Press reporter Areej Hazboun in Jerusalem contributed.

___

A previous version of this story was corrected to restore comments that an earlier version mistakenly said were Hayoun's.

This article originally appeared on Associated Press at https://www.yahoo.com/news/world/articles/plumber-dentist-praised-heroes-flydubai-160401133.html

President Donald Trump said in an interview out Thursday that he would be open to pardoning members of his administration, pointing to former President Joe Biden’s blanket pardon to relatives and members of the administration out of concern they would be politically targeted after he left office. 

"Yeah, sure, I'd do that," the president answered when asked by TIME magazine earlier this week if he was "considering pardoning members of your administration prior to the end of your term?"

The president further said that Biden "gave pardons to everyone."

Kent Nishimura/AFP via Getty Images - PHOTO: President Donald Trump answers questions from reporters during an announcement in the Oval Office at the White House, September 28, 2026 in Washington.

Biden issued preemptive pardons to several close family members in the final minutes of his presidency in 2025, saying that his family "has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me" and that he had "no reason to believe these attacks will end" after he left office.

Those pardons included James Biden, Joe's younger brother; Sara Jones Biden, James' wife; Valerie Biden Owens, Joe's younger sister; John T. Owens', Valerie's husband; and Francis W. Biden, Joe's younger brother.

In 2024, Biden pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, who was convicted on tax evasion and federal gun charges.

Trump's pardon comments mark the first time he has publicly said he would consider pardoning members of his administration.

Last year, he issued pardons to some to his political and financial supporters as well as several high-profile individuals allegedly involved in his attempt to overturn the election. In his first term, he pardoned several advisers, members of his campaign and one former member of his administration, former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

Trump's flurry of pardons include some to campaign contributors

In the interview, Trump expressed his belief that if the Democrats emerge victorious in the midterm elections, “they'll probably go after" him, but he said he will also target them back. 

Trump still expressed confidence that Republicans will "do okay" in November, as long as he is on the campaign trail. 

"No, I think we'll do okay if I campaign, and I intend to," he said, when asked if he believes that Democrats will take control of Congress.

He then went on to tout some of his endorsement victories including for Republicans Darline Graham and Ed Gallerin -- who defeated Rep. Thomas Massie in the primary for Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District.

Asked about his record low poll numbers, Trump called them "fake" and insisted that he could easily beat anybody who ran against him.

"They're fake numbers. I would beat anybody running today by 20 points," Trump said. "Your numbers that you have are fake."

Trump's cover of TIME magazine will mark his 56th such appearance, according to the outlet. That's more than any other figure in history, surpassing former President Richard Nixon's record.

Trump's interview will be the cover story for TIME's Oct. 26 issue.

This article originally appeared on Good Morning America at https://abcnews.com/Politics/trump-pardoning-administration-members/story?id=136915372

WASHINGTON (AP) — A judge in the nation’s capital agreed on Thursday to permanently dismiss a criminal case charging a former Olympian with vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a move that could prevent federal prosecutors from reviving the case under political pressure from President Donald Trump.

D.C. Superior Court Judge Todd Edelman ordered the dismissal of David Hearn’s case with “prejudice,” which would block U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office from refiling the felony charge against him. The judge ruled nearly a month after hearing attorneys’ arguments.

Hearn’s lawyers say Trump administration officials have continued to falsely accuse the Maryland resident of vandalizing the reflecting pool despite Pirro’s decision to drop the case on July 31. Trump responded by saying Pirro “choked” and “folded like an umbrella.”

Edelman said the case presents “exceptional circumstances” that warrant dismissing the case permanently. He agreed with defense attorneys that the government “shot first and asked questions later” by charging Hearn in a “a lightning-fast indictment process.”

“While the government wishes to hold open the possibility of the development of evidence that would support a future prosecution, its own representations make plain that such a possibility is theoretical at best, and more likely, is simply fanciful,” the judge wrote.

Permanently dismissing the case protects Hearn from prosecutors electing to revive the case under political pressure from Trump, the judge said.

“Although the prosecutors assigned to this case have deemed it meritless, the President of the United States has repeatedly disparaged them and pressured them to change course,” Edelman wrote.

In a court filing in July, Pirro said new evidence produced by the Interior Department showed Hearn wasn’t responsible for damage to the pool’s lining. Pirro’s office attributed the damage instead to a botched installation by a contractor as well as a rush to complete the project in time for this summer’s America 250 celebration in Washington.

Pirro’s admission was an embarrassing setback for the White House. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has backed Trump’s claims that vandals damaged the pool.

Hearn has said he was on a bike ride on June 19 when he reached in to examine the pool’s newly peeled coating and briefly touched a chunk attached to the side of the pool. But he said he obeyed a park worker’s command to let go of it.

Hearn was charged with one count of property destruction, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years. His lawyers questioned whether prosecutors properly presented the grand jury with adequate evidence to support the charge and the amount of damage alleged by the government.

Hearn, 67, of Bethesda, Maryland, competed in three Summer Olympics, earning his best finish, ninth, at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee says on its website.

Trump, a Republican, appointed Pirro, a former Fox News host, to serve as the top federal prosecutor for the District of Columbia. Edelman was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Barack Obama.

Hearn’s attorneys said the ruling is “a victory for the rule of law and for an innocent American seeking justice” and allows Hearn to “move forward with his life as he deserves.”

“This administration chose to pursue an unjust prosecution against Mr. Hearn. It should not get repeated chances to wield the power of criminal prosecution against someone who should never have been prosecuted,” the lawyers said in a statement.

This article originally appeared on Associated Press at https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/dc-judge-permanently-dismisses-case-150301433.html

A woman who accused seven members of a fraternity at Cornell University in 2024 of rape reportedly told the school’s investigators that she “felt like bait” on the night of the alleged assault. 

"I felt like lions around me,” she said during a 2025 hearing, according to ABC News. “It just was a totally debilitating place to be in."

The comments were included in a 99-page report prepared by the university as part of its Title IX investigation, per ABC.

The report also included comments from a fraternity member who Cornell’s investigation concluded did not engage in the assault but was found responsible for "attempted sexual exploitation." 

"I was sorry that maybe if it wasn't consensual and she was victimized, I was sorry for not stopping it," the fraternity members said, according to ABC.

In a civil lawsuit filed last month against the school and the fraternity members, the woman, a former student identified as "Jane Doe," said that she was the victim of a "gang rape" at the Chi Phi fraternity on Cornell's Ithaca, N.Y., campus on Oct. 19, 2024. She said she was already intoxicated when she arrived and was given ketamine before and during the alleged assault. She reported the incident to campus police three weeks later.

On Tuesday, CBS New York published excerpts from a Nov. 14, 2024, interview with police, in which she asserted, "I can say with 100% confidence I was raped." 

Cornell University Police vehicles are seen on campus on Sept. 29.Reuters / REUTERS

Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten, the New York state prosecutor who reopened a criminal investigation into the case, said he was not provided with a transcript of her interview with campus police before his office decided not to pursue charges.

"I'm going to follow up on this because this is news to me," Van Houten told the network. "If she had said those words, we certainly would want to have explored that more. Like I said, that wasn't provided to me."

In a lengthy statement released on Monday, Van Houten announced that he had started pursuing criminal charges against the seven fraternity members and would present the case to a grand jury. He also sought to explain why he initially decided not to prosecute them.

According to Van Houten, Jane Doe "did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang raped" in a six-page sworn statement to campus police in November 2024.

"On the contrary, Jane Doe's statement described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual," Van Houten said. "My office obviously did not and could not have based our November 2024 decision on the allegations in a civil lawsuit that would not be filed until nearly two years later."

It's unclear exactly when the sworn statement cited by Van Houten was given. He did not immediately return a request for comment.

Cornell University issued a statement on Monday saying it supported the district attorney's decision to reopen the case while pushing back against claims that the school did not thoroughly punish those involved in the alleged assault.

"Any suggestion that the university did not impose consequential punishments for those involved is false," the university said. "A continuation of the false narrative that there were minimal consequences in this case is irresponsible, will make survivors feel less safe and supported, and will perpetuate the underreporting of sexual assault."

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced on Wednesday that Cornell has agreed to initiate an independent review of its initial response to the allegations a day after the governor had called for one.

"I spoke with Cornell's president today, and the university has agreed to bring in outside counsel for an independent investigation," Hochul wrote in a post on X. "I've directed my team to look at what more we can do to strengthen protections for survivors. This culture has to stop. And in New York, we're going to do everything we can to stop it."

What does the lawsuit allege?The Chi Phi fraternity house at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., is seen on Sept. 28.AP Photo/Heather Ainsworth

On Sept. 14, Jane Doe filed a civil lawsuit against Cornell University and seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity, alleging that she was the victim of a "gang rape" at the fraternity house when she was incapable of consent — and that the school failed to protect her from "sexual predators" on its campus.

The defendants named in the lawsuit include Cornell, the seven fraternity members, the Chi Phi fraternity, the woman's own sorority, Delta Delta Delta, and an off-campus bar that allegedly served her alcohol.

She is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages resulting from "sustained psychological injuries, severe emotional distress, along with pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of life."

According to her lawsuit, Jane Doe was a 20-year-old student at the school in October 2024 when she went to visit a friend at the fraternity house on Cornell's Ithaca, N.Y., campus while intoxicated. Shortly after arriving, Jane Doe alleged that she was pressured by two fraternity brothers into snorting what they said was ketamine before sexually assaulting her. One of the men then allegedly sent a message to the fraternity's Snapchat group suggesting that she was available for sex. A screengrab of part of the chat was included in the lawsuit.

According to the complaint, multiple other members of the fraternity showed up, and she was raped for hours.

"The Snapchat was disgusting and vulgar and immoral," Van Houten told ABC News. "But the question that we analyzed was, did Jane Doe consent to what happened? And the law in New York state is clear: That if you are voluntarily intoxicated, or under the influence of drugs such that your judgment is impaired, that does not legally under the penal law constitute your inability to consent."

During the alleged assault, the fraternity members "began pouring lines of Ketamine all over her body and snorting them," according to the complaint.

"At around 5:45 AM, this assault concluded and Plaintiff lost consciousness," the lawsuit stated.

About three weeks later, on Nov. 8, 2024, Jane Doe reported the incident to the university's police department.

According to ABC News, Jane Doe told police in a sworn statement on Nov. 15, 2024, that the incident "felt like coercion," and that at one point she said "no to the foursome" one of the fraternity brothers had proposed. She also stated: "I felt like I was unable to make any decision because of how intoxicated I was."

According to the New York Times, she told Cornell’s Title IX investigators that she did not consider herself a victim until she saw the incident being discussed in an online forum.

“Are Chi Phi brothers Crips or Bloods because I hear they have been doing hell Gang Banging?” one user wrote.

“They do drugs and gang r*ped a sophomore,” wrote another.

“That’s the first time I had ever heard the narrative change that I wasn’t a whore and that I was assaulted,” Jane Doe told investigators, per the Times.

What was Cornell's response?A student walks past a Cornell University sign in Ithaca, N.Y., on Sept. 28.AP Photo/Heather Ainsworth

Cornell’s months-long Title IX investigation included at least 12 hearings, according to the lawsuit, which said that the accused fraternity members were "afforded the opportunity to mitigate their conduct by submitting essays to Cornell."

Two of the seven accused fraternity members were ultimately expelled, while the others received lesser sanctions, according to the complaint. Jane Doe dropped out of school.

Last week, Cornell issued a statement saying that it had concluded its Title IX investigation but would not disclose individual sanctions, citing federal privacy laws.

"The Cornell Office of Civil Rights and the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards investigated and adjudicated the allegations consistent with university policies. The Xi chapter of Chi Phi fraternity remains barred from our campus," the statement said: "Federal privacy law prohibits Cornell from disclosing specific information regarding individual students and we therefore are unable to make a public statement on any other disciplinary response. Violations of university policies could lead to sanctions up to and including suspension or expulsion. We will respond in detail through the legal process."

The university also pointed out that it launched a task force on campus sexual assault in the wake of the incident and issued a report in March with recommendations for "an environment that fosters sexual health and safety."

"Several of the recommendations have already been implemented, while others are in development with oversight by a university implementation committee," Cornell said.

According to USA Today, more than 1,200 incidents of sexual assault, domestic and dating violence and stalking were reported to Cornell University's Title IX from 2018 through 2024. Of those, 14 cases resulted in suspensions, while seven ended in expulsion or dismissal, per the paper.

"Cornell takes each report seriously and, to the greatest extent possible, honors a complainant's decision not to pursue resolution," Rebecca Valli, a Cornell spokesperson, said in a statement to USA Today. "The university provides support and resources regardless of whether the respondent is subject to our conduct processes, and regardless of whether a complainant consents to an investigation."

Reactions to the allegationsFlorence Pugh attends an event for Netflix's "East of Eden" in New York City on Sept. 27.Jason Mendez via Getty Images

The harrowing allegations revealed in Jane Doe's lawsuit prompted reactions from several celebrities, including Florence Pugh, who posted a lengthy response on Instagram calling for men to speak out against sexual violence.

"This is really the moment where we need our men to be as horrified and as sickened as us," Pugh wrote. "You need to be leading conversations about how we change the allowance and complicity of this behaviour as much as we are. How can you expect us to trust that it's 'not all men' when in moments like this, many of you stay quiet?"

In an expletive-laden Instagram post, actor Josh Gad tore into Cornell, seizing on allegations in the civil lawsuit that the fraternity members were required to write essays as part of the adjudication process.

"When we start setting a precedent that our girls and women can be brutally raped, and the resulting disciplinary action is to hand out (checks notes) ESSAYS (like it's Bart Simpson being a lil' rascal), about why it was wrong to brutally violate an innocent girl, we have lost our f***ing minds," Gad wrote.

Toby Morton, a former South Park writer, launched a website, TheCornell7.org, dedicated to holding the school and the accused fraternity members accountable.

"Accountability is coming," Morton wrote on Instagram.

View this post on Instagram

Mariska Hargitay posted a joint statement on Instagram with the Joyful Heart Foundation, which supports survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse, with a quote from a scathing editorial by the Cornell Daily Sun.

"Arrest them," Heated Rivalry star Hudson Williams wrote in an Instagram story while sharing a photo of the seven accused men, according to Variety.

"F*** them and f*** Cornell, too!" he added.

At a town hall in Ithaca, N.Y., earlier this week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, said that "the culture of rape, sexual assault and pedophilia is protected in elite institutions across the United States, including Cornell."

"Jane Doe, that survivor, lost her education because you can't stay in school when something like that happens to you," Ocasio-Cortez told the crowd. "She had to lose her education, and those men were protected by an institution and granted an Ivy League degree as a reward. Never again."

She also had a message to Jane Doe and other survivors of sexual assault.

"I want you to know that you are not defined by the things that have happened to you," Ocasio-Cortez said. "You are bigger than that. You are stronger than them. And they will never define you for your entire life. And that you can achieve anything that you want to achieve, from one survivor to another."

This article originally appeared on Yahoo News at https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/article/cornell-rape-case-prosecutor-says-he-wasnt-given-transcript-of-jane-does-interview-with-campus-police-university-agrees-to-independent-investigation-new-york-governor-says-183826467.html

A view of Catalina's Avalon Harbor. A medical transport helicopter crashed off the island on Wednesday. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Investigators have located the wreckage of a medical transport helicopter that crashed in the Pacific Ocean after departing Wednesday night from Santa Catalina Island, killing a pilot and a nurse.

One person, a female patient being taken to the mainland, remains missing, and two people survived. Sources familiar with the investigation said the missing woman is a 45-year-old resident of Avalon who suffered a severe allergy attack.

At a press conference Thursday, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said it’s unlikely that the patient survived the crash, and noted the wreckage was deep in the water, 200 feet below the surface. Divers from the department’s special enforcement bureau will work with other agencies and use technology to search the ocean floor.

“This is a tragedy for Catalina and for Los Angeles County,” said county Supervisor Janice Hahn. “The men and women on board dedicated their careers to responding to crisis and saving lives. They are heroes.”

The Los Angeles County Fire Department received a call at 7:53 p.m. Wednesday for a marine rescue to pull three people from the water, agency spokesperson Jonathan Torres said.

The department learned that the three were aboard a helicopter bound for the mainland and that five people were involved, Torres said. The aircraft was a Eurocopter EC135 P2, the National Transportation Safety Board said. The helicopter was equipped as a medical transport and was owned by REACH Air Medical Services, the U.S. Coast Guard said.

Flight tracking data show the helicopter left Catalina’s Pebbly Beach heliport and got about 175 feet above sea level about eight seconds into its flight before rapidly descending.

“We have a helicopter down right off of Pebbly Beach,” emergency dispatchers said over the radio, according to an audio recording of the incident. “We need Baywatch Avalon by boat. We’ve got a helicopter with potentially three people on board. ... We have people screaming for help.”

A Catalina medical transport helicopter crash victim is taken to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Westwood in an L.A. County Fire Department helicopter. (KTLA-TV)

Rescuers found four people in the water. Two of them were pronounced dead, and two were rescued, taken to mainland hospitals and were stable, Torres said. The fifth person has not been found, Torres said, though the search continued through the night and into Thursday.

The Coast Guard sent an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter and crew to the island and deployed a 45-foot response boat to assist with the incident.

Leahy said the helicopter and boat are searching for the missing person across several square miles, and are using computer software that predicts where the person might be based on environmental factors such as drift and currents.

The longer the search continues, the larger the search area will have to be, he said. The crash left a large debris field that ocean currents have been pushing back toward the island, he said, which has made it easier for the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department to recover some of it, Leahy said.

If the missing person isn’t found, the search will eventually turn into a recovery, at which point the Coast Guard will disengage because the agency does not do body recoveries. When that could happen is unclear and depends on various factors, including how quickly the Coast Guard’s boat and helicopter can cover the search area. As of Thursday morning, conditions were relatively calm and good for searching, Leahy said, though the currents were stronger than expected.

Whether someone can survive in the water is also hard to predict, Leahy said, and depends on several factors, including the water temperature and whether the person is wearing a flotation device or is clinging to debris.

Aviation attorney Mike Slack, who is based in Austin, Texas, said the missing person most probably went down with the aircraft because patients are strapped to their gurney during helicopter transports for safety. That is a “real danger” during medical transports over water, he said.

Although it is too early to say exactly what caused the crash, Slack said that, with five people on board, a medical transport helicopter could exceed its maximum weight if it had a full tank of fuel.

Slack said the NTSB will have little difficulty recovering the helicopter and extracting flight data despite the aircraft being underwater. Many helicopters are equipped with video and audio recording devices that capture everything inside, as well as flight and engine data recorders.

REACH Air Medical Services said in a statement on social media that it is aware of the incident and is gathering information and coordinating with authorities.

“Our thoughts are with the families, loved ones and colleagues affected by this tragedy,” the company said in its statement. “We are focused on supporting our team and everyone impacted during this incredibly difficult time.”

Federal aircraft records show the helicopter was manufactured by Eurocopter Deutschland GmbH, a German company.

The NTSB will lead the investigation, Torres said.

An NTSB spokesperson said that the agency’s investigators arrived at the scene about 11:30 a.m. Thursday to document the site and examine the helicopter once it is recovered and transported to a secure facility.

“It is very early in the investigation, and limited information is available at this time,” the spokesperson wrote.

Catalina Island has one small hospital. About 250 people are transported to the mainland by helicopter each year for medical treatment, the hospital’s chief executive previously said.

Read more: Medical helicopter plunges onto Sacramento highway in violent crash; 3 in critical condition

NTSB data show that of 13 incidents involving EC135 helicopters since 2005, not including Wednesday’s, six have involved fatalities. The last occurred in March 2025 in Canton, Miss., and involved a medical transport helicopter called AirCare 3. Three people died.

Wednesday’s fatal air disaster was also not the first involving a REACH Air Medical Services helicopter. Last October, a nurse aboard another REACH Eurocopter was killed, and the pilot and flight paramedic suffered serious injuries.

According to an NTSB preliminary report, “about 26 seconds” after the helicopter left UC Davis Medical Center heliport in Sacramento, “the flight paramedic reported the power had gone out and made a Mayday call as the chopper autorotated and crashed onto U.S. Route 50.”

An NTSB examination of the crash site found that an outer portion of the main rotor blade had broken off and was found stuck in a detached garage of a nearby home. The helicopter reached about 500 feet before an 11-second descent. A final report on the crash is still pending.

In November 2015, firefighters were using a REACH Eurocopter for training to simulate patient loading and unloading at the Apple Valley airport when the pilot felt a shudder and immediately landed. An NTSB investigation found that a towel had been ingested from an unsecured storage container on the ground, resulting in substantial damage to the tail rotor blades.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

This article originally appeared on LA Times at https://www.yahoo.com/news/weather-news/articles/2-dead-1-missing-off-143914474.html

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Renee Good’s family sued the U.S. government and several immigration officials Thursday, alleging wrongful death, conspiracy and other violations in the 37-year-old woman’s killing by an immigration officer during a federal crackdown in Minneapolis.

The two lawsuits were filed by Good’s partner, Becca Good, and Renee's brother Brent Ganger.

The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the lawsuits.

Officer shot Good as she turned her car away from him

Renee Good, a mother of three, was fatally shot Jan. 7 as protests against immigration raids flared across the city. According to Becca Good, her partner stopped their car in a street to support neighbors during an immigration operation.

Bystander video shows Renee Good in the driver’s seat of a red SUV blocking part of the road and repeatedly honking her horn.

Two immigration officers get out of a truck, their faces covered, and one orders Good to get out of the car. She reverses briefly, then turns the steering wheel as the officer says again, “get out of the car.”

Almost simultaneously, Becca Good, standing in the street, shouts: “Drive, baby, drive!”

One officer standing in front of the vehicle pulls his weapon and fires into the windshield. He lurches back as the car turns away from him. The officer, who is now very close to the open window on the driver’s side, opens fire two more times, fatally shooting Renee Good, according to an analysis of the videos by The Associated Press and others.

Federal officials at the time said the officer acted in self-defense and that Good had engaged in “an act of domestic terrorism.”

Lawsuits allege wrongful death and conspiracy

The lawsuit against the United States of America seeks damages for Good's wrongful death and “the immense suffering Renee endured in the final moments of her life and for the profound and permanent losses that her death has inflicted upon her family,” according to a news release filed by lawyers for Ganger and Good.

The lawsuit also alleges “intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of emotional distress” on Becca Good.

Becca and Renee Good were not legally married, according to a family lawyer, but referred to one another as wives. They had only recently relocated to Minneapolis from Kansas City, Missouri. It asks for a bench trial.

The other lawsuit alleges a conspiracy to interfere with civil rights and seeks a jury trial.

It says the shots fired by Jonathan Ross, the immigration officer who killed Good, “were the predictable and intended product of the operation,” which the lawsuit describes as a “carefully planned, coordinated effort between senior federal officials and private actors to make two ethnic communities — Minnesotans of Somali and Hispanic descent and origin — the object of aggression and abduction, and to silence by intimidation, arrest and violence the neighbors and allies of those targeted communities who observed, documented and warned of that campaign,” according to the news release.

The lawsuit also alleges “collaboration of federal agencies and individuals with private entities for an operation with discriminatory design, racially targeted pursuit and seizure of individuals without regard to their legal status, and each defendant’s participation in the conspiracy.”

It names Ross as a defendant, as well as: White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller; former Homeland Security head Kristi Noem; former U.S. Border Patrol commander-at-large Gregory Bovino; Corey Lewandowski, President Donald Trump’s campaign manager, and others.

The killing of Good and another U.S. citizen, Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis just weeks later sparked outrage across the country and calls to rein in immigration enforcement. At least 10 people have died in encounters with immigration officers during President Donald Trump’s second term.

In social media accounts, Renee Good described herself as a “poet and writer and wife and mom.” On Pinterest, a profile picture shows her smiling and holding a young child, alongside posts about tattoos, hairstyles and home decorating.

In an interview shortly after her death, Renee Good’s mother, Donna Ganger, told The Associated Press: “She had this way of making you feel special and loved that I didn’t even understand that until we lost her.”

“As we have tried to navigate our own massive loss, I am also devastated by how many other lives have been destroyed in this darkest of times,” Becca Good said in the news release Thursday. “So many other families are dealing with the loss of their loved ones; to everyone who has had to witness it — the pain of this moment extends far beyond our family. What happened to us should never happen to any family.”

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McCormack reported from Concord, New Hampshire.

This article originally appeared on Associated Press at https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/renee-goods-family-sues-us-140809141.html

Matthias Huss with a four-metre-long measuring stake indicating the amount of ice that melted over the past year on the Scex Rouge glacier (Fabrice COFFRINI)

Switzerland's glaciers, which are disproportionately impacted by climate change, have lost nearly 20 percent of their mass in five years, experts said Thursday, with 2026 registering the second-biggest melt on record.

Swiss glaciers saw 5.5 percent of their volume melt away this year, the Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland (GLAMOS) network found in a new study, published after a record hot summer preceded by a winter with little snowfall.

"The glaciers this year have lost enormous quantities of ice," said GLAMOS chief Matthias Huss, describing 2026 as "a catastrophic year".

Perched on the Scex Rouge glacier, at an altitude of nearly 3,000 metres, he gazed across the landscape in despair.

"This is a glacier that isn't surviving," he said.

"There will be probably no ice in 10 or maybe 15 years."

He carefully dismantled the four-metre-long aluminium measurement stake inserted at the centre of the glacier.

In late July, when it was installed, it was completely embedded, but now more than three metres protrude from the grey surface of the ice. 

"It's not that we are surprised, because we know how fast the glaciers are melting," Huss said.

"But to see the colours of the mountains where there is no snow left, there is just these rocks and these dark glaciers that are a relic from the past... it's just incredible."

Between 2022 and 2026, the melt rate at Switzerland's glaciers was "more than twice as high as in any previously monitored five-year period", the GLAMOS report said, noting an ice volume loss of almost 20 percent since 2021.

While Switzerland's glaciers have long been shrinking, the melt has recently sped up dramatically.

While 10 percent of Swiss ice volume disappeared between 1990 and 2000, 27 percent was lost in the past 10 years, the report showed.

GLAMOS based its findings on extensive measurements at 23 reference glaciers in September, which it extrapolated to the nearly 1,300 glacial formations still found in Switzerland.

 

- 'No chance of surviving' -

 

The report comes after a summer where the months of June, July and August were each the hottest ever recorded in Switzerland since measurements began in 1864, according to the Swiss Federal Office of Meteorology and Climatology.

This year, the protective snow cover on the glaciers had already partially disappeared during the June heatwaves, and had completely disappeared by September, even at high altitudes, GLAMOS said.

"Alpine glaciers have no chance of surviving in the long term under such conditions," GLAMOS said in a statement.

Due to significant melting this year, the researchers even had to reposition measurement stakes -- including on the highest-altitude glaciers -- further up after the ice melted away in the original locations.

The average ice thickness of some glaciers decreased by 2.5 to 4.0 metres, while the more exposed glacier tongues saw losses of up to 10 metres of thickness over the summer.

 

- Rhone and Aletsch Glaciers -

 

Although temperatures were higher this year, the ice loss did not surpass the record set in 2022, since many glaciers saw more snow before the summer melt than they had four years ago.

Less dust from the Sahara Desert also settled on the glaciers this year, allowing more sunlight to be reflected back into the atmosphere rather than being absorbed by the snow.

There were exceptions, however.

Four major glaciers experienced record melting this year, including the iconic Rhone Glacier and the Aletsch -- the biggest glacier in the Alps.

As the glaciers retreat, concern is meanwhile growing over the future availability of water resources.

Between July and September this year, the glaciers lost a total of around 2.2 trillion litres of water.

Huss said that quantity was "difficult to imagine".

"It's more than four times the annual freshwater consumption of Swiss households," he pointed out.

elm-apo/nl/rjm/cw

This article originally appeared on AFP at https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/catastrophic-swiss-glaciers-lose-fifth-000252439.html

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to review a Trump administration policy denying bond hearings for immigrants as the government carries out a sweeping crackdown.

The justices will consider whether immigrants who have been living in the U.S. have a right to a hearing to determine if they should remain detained while challenging their possible deportation.

The case will test a key pillar of the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration agenda.

Most appeals courts to have considered the issue have found that it violates federal law to detain immigrants, including those living in the U.S. illegally, without a bond hearing. Those decisions conflict with rulings by the 5th and 8th circuits, which held that immigrants accused of illegally entering and remaining in the U.S. must be detained while their deportation cases are pending.

The high court agreed to hear the case of Ricardo Aparecido Barbosa da Cunha, a citizen of Brazil. Authorities say he entered the United States illegally two decades ago and applied for asylum in 2016. He sought a bond hearing after an immigration judge determined that his detention was mandatory following his September 2025 arrest.

He has never been charged or convicted of a crime, his attorneys said. The court is expected to hear the case in the coming months.

President Donald Trump’s administration had urged the high court to take up a different but related case that involves the broader constitutional implications of the new policy.

Attorneys from the Republican administration argue the circuits’ split is “disrupting the orderly administration of immigration law.” They say the nation’s courts have been inundated with thousands of petitions filed by immigrants challenging the government’s legal interpretation.

“The result is an unworkable patchwork of inconsistent immigration enforcement, where aliens present without admission are subject to mandatory detention in some circuits but are entitled to bond hearings and often released in others,” lawyers for the administration wrote.

The plaintiffs are immigrants represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, which says hundreds of district court judges have joined most circuits in rejecting the Trump administration’s new reading of the statutes. Plaintiffs’ lawyers say the administration is trying to deny bond hearings for immigrants apprehended anywhere in the U.S. — no matter how long they’ve lived in the country — rather than limiting the restriction to noncitizens stopped at the border.

“Millions of noncitizens could be affected by the government’s new interpretation,” ACLU attorneys wrote.

The Trump administration says its new mandatory detention policy is legal under a 1996 immigration law. The policy change departs from the practices of prior administrations, which typically allowed most noncitizens without criminal records to request a bond hearing if they were arrested away from the border.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

This article originally appeared on Associated Press at https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/supreme-court-grants-review-trump-135530935.html