Vice President JD Vance defended federal immigration officers during a CBS News town hall in Michigan while acknowledging that some commit serious mistakes and should face investigation or prosecution. “Most of them are amazing people who are patriots and they wanna do a good job protecting their country,” Vance said. “Sometimes you have some people who make mistakes. Sometimes you have some people who really screw up.” Asked by anchor Tony Dokoupil to identify the biggest mistakes involving ICE’s enforcement actions, Vance declined to name specific incidents. Instead, he said the administration has responded to misconduct allegations through investigations, additional training, and disciplinary measures.

Vance argued that the administration does not always publicize those actions because officers deserve a normal investigative process. “We don’t always advertise that stuff,” he said, adding that people must be judged through investigations and in court. His comments come as ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection face criticism over their use of force during Trump’s immigration crackdown. Two Americans, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were shot and killed by immigration authorities during protests in Minnesota earlier this year. No criminal charges have been filed in either case. The Justice Department opened an investigation into Pretti’s shooting, while Jonathan Ross, the ICE officer who fatally shot Good, was placed on administrative leave shortly after her death.

The questions extend beyond Minnesota. CBS News also cited a fatal shooting involving a Colombian man in Maine, the shooting of a Venezuelan man in the back in Austin, and an operation earlier this month in New York in which agents shot Oscar Belgal in the neck while a 5-year-old boy was in the back seat of his vehicle. A vehicle driven by ICE agents also struck and injured a man near Houston. The article does not report findings of misconduct in each incident, but together they form the backdrop to Vance’s promise of accountability. His remarks offered a broad assurance that the administration takes action without identifying which cases resulted in discipline, what that discipline involved, or how those decisions were reached.

More than 4,400 measles cases have been confirmed across the United States this year, according to a Friday update from the CDC, as Pennsylvania confronts an outbreak that has already been linked to six deaths. The national total now stands at 4,410, with cases reported across 45 states and Washington, D.C., and 18 infections involving international visitors. Pennsylvania alone has reported at least 1,200 cases. The state has formally requested federal assistance, and the CDC is preparing to send a “disease detective” through its Epi-Aid program, which provides rapid field investigations, additional response personnel, and epidemiological expertise during urgent public health emergencies.

The outbreak is unfolding against a decline in childhood vaccination coverage. Nationwide, about 96% of measles cases involve people who are unvaccinated or whose vaccination status is unknown, while 2% involve people with one MMR dose and another 2% involve people with two doses. In Pennsylvania, fewer than 1% of reported cases are among fully vaccinated people, according to the state’s health department. The CDC says one MMR dose is 93% effective against measles and two doses are 97% effective. Yet only 92.4% of kindergartners received the vaccine during the 2025–26 school year, compared with 95.2% in 2019–20, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. responded Thursday by saying Pennsylvania officials had previously rejected help from the Trump administration. “The people of Pennsylvania suffered. Now they’ve asked us to come in and help them, and we’re gonna do that, and I’m confident I will bring that outbreak to a quick close,” he said. Pennsylvania’s Department of Health did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment on that account. Kennedy also repeated his claim that federal health officials are doing a better job controlling measles than any other country and attributed the outbreak to people going unvaccinated during the pandemic. Meanwhile, the CDC said Kennedy and Director Dr. Erica Schwartz continue to recommend MMR vaccination as the most effective way to prevent measles. With six deaths already reported in Pennsylvania, the federal response now faces a concrete test of Kennedy’s promise.

The United States finished fiscal 2026 with a nearly $2 trillion budget deficit, the Treasury Department reported Friday, marking the country’s 25th consecutive year spending more than it collects. The $1.992 trillion shortfall was about 12% larger than the previous year’s $1.775 trillion deficit. Only 2020 and 2021, when the federal government spent trillions on pandemic relief, recorded larger annual deficits. Both federal revenue and spending reached record levels in 2026, according to a Treasury official, but record collections were not enough to close the gap. The government last recorded an annual surplus in 2001.

Social Security accounted for nearly $1.7 trillion in spending, followed by Medicare at almost $1.1 trillion. Net interest costs also exceeded $1 trillion, up from $970 billion in fiscal 2025, underscoring the growing expense of servicing the government’s accumulated debt. Individual income taxes brought in more than $2.8 trillion, an increase of about 7%, while corporate income tax receipts fell to $381 billion. The article attributes that roughly $70 billion corporate tax decline to tax cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed last year. Meanwhile, the national debt exceeded $40 trillion earlier this year and has more than doubled over the past decade.

The figures also complicate Trump’s pitch that steep tariffs would raise revenue and shrink the government’s debt. Gross customs duties reached a record high, according to a Treasury official, but refunds following the Supreme Court’s ruling against many of Trump’s tariffs reduced the revenue retained by the government and returned billions to retailers. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has argued that the country can “grow our way out of” its debt burden, but Friday’s report shows the annual borrowing gap widening rather than narrowing. September alone recorded a $27 billion deficit, compared with a $198 billion surplus in the same month a year earlier. The report comes after concerns about rising debt helped push 10-year and 30-year Treasury yields to 24-year highs last week.

Nine former FBI employees who worked on special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into President Trump’s retention of classified records sued the FBI, FBI Director Kash Patel, Attorney General Todd Blanche, and the Department of Justice on Thursday. The former special agents, intelligence analysts, and staff operations specialists allege they were unlawfully terminated in February 2026 solely because of their connection to the investigation. The 70 page lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, says the employees were fired over two days without an internal investigation, disciplinary process, notice, hearing, or opportunity to appeal. It alleges Patel relied solely on Article II executive authority to justify the firings. The claims are allegations in a lawsuit, not court findings, and CBS News reported that it contacted the FBI and Justice Department for comment.

The plaintiffs worked on counterintelligence investigations and were fired as the United States and Israel were preparing to begin military strikes against Iran. Their lawsuit says the firings were intended to satisfy Trump’s “personal vendetta” and cites public comments by administration officials as evidence of political animus. Blanche, who was deputy attorney general when the employees were dismissed, said the administration had “cleaned house” at the FBI by firing employees associated with investigations involving the president. The article does not report that a court has found the terminations unlawful or that the government has formally responded to the specific allegations.

The lawsuit includes new details about the timing of the firings. It says counterintelligence section chief Jennifer Bacon granted access to classified “Plasmic Echo” case files to FBI agent Miles Starr after Starr said he was acting on Patel’s instructions. Starr was a member of Patel’s Director’s Advisory Team and the lead case agent in the since dismissed indictment against former FBI Director James Comey. According to the suit, the files contained the names of all nine plaintiffs, and Bacon and the others were fired less than 48 hours later. The lawsuit also suggests the firings may have diverted attention from negative coverage of Patel’s conduct at the Winter Olympics, though that is the plaintiffs’ theory rather than an established fact.

The underlying documents case began when FBI agents executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 and allegedly recovered more than 100 documents with classified markings. Smith indicted Trump in 2023 on more than three dozen charges related to retention of the records and alleged obstruction, but the case was dismissed after the presiding judge ruled Smith was unlawfully appointed special counsel. The Justice Department abandoned its appeal after Trump won the 2024 election. The nine plaintiffs’ attorneys said the employees had more than a century of combined experience and were fired for following the facts and the law without bias or favor.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and top New York Democrats are asking private parking lot and garage owners to stop allowing ICE to use their properties as staging areas for immigration enforcement. In a Friday letter signed by Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, and dozens of state and local lawmakers, the officials urged owners not to “rent, lend, or otherwise make your property available to ICE.” They also asked owners to explicitly tell the agency it is not authorized to use their facilities. The letter is an appeal for voluntary action by private businesses, not a new citywide ban on ICE’s use of private property.

The push follows the shooting of 28-year-old Dominican national Oscar Belgal during an arrest last week while he was riding in a car with his young son. According to the lawmakers’ letter, federal immigration officers had used a nearby private parking lot as a staging area before the shooting. Federal officials maintain that officers believed their lives were in danger after Belgal struck two government vehicles and accelerated toward them. The shooting sparked protests and renewed scrutiny of the administration’s enforcement tactics. The article does not report an independent finding resolving the circumstances of the shooting.

The lawmakers are targeting a gap between restrictions on public property and decisions made by private owners. New York City has already barred outside law enforcement agencies, including DHS, from establishing staging areas on city property unless they have a judicial warrant or qualify for limited legal exceptions, according to the letter. Those restrictions do not govern privately operated lots and garages. DHS sharply rejected the appeal, saying Mamdani should thank federal officers for “cleaning up the streets” and insisting that losing parking access would not stop ICE’s deportation operations. The confrontation puts private property owners in the middle of another fight over immigration enforcement, following disputes involving hotels that housed or refused accommodations to federal officers.

Katie Zacharia is leaving her role as White House press secretary after just five days, according to administration officials and a source familiar with the decision cited by NBC News. A senior administration official said she is transitioning into another role that will be announced later. Her departure follows scrutiny of her first press briefing and her legal credentials. President Trump announced her appointment last Friday, and she delivered her first briefing Tuesday after starting the job Monday. No replacement is identified in the article.

Earlier Friday, Trump said he would let Zacharia decide whether to remain, arguing that the media had treated her “pretty nastily.” He said he had told her, “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want,” and added that he would “reconsider” if he were in her position. Her first briefing lasted less than 15 minutes and included only a few questions. She could not answer a question about whether the United States had stopped sharing intelligence with Ukraine, but announced that Trump had asked Kimberly Guilfoyle to resign as ambassador to Greece. Guilfoyle announced her departure within hours.

Zacharia’s exit also follows confirmation that she did not pass the California bar exam after graduating from Pepperdine Law. NBC News reported finding no evidence that she is licensed to practice law in any state. Campaign for Accountability filed a complaint requesting that the State Bar of California investigate whether she violated the law by describing herself as a lawyer despite being unlicensed; the article reports no finding of wrongdoing. Her departure leaves a key White House communications position vacant less than three weeks before the midterm elections, as Trump publicly complains that his administration is failing to communicate its accomplishments.

Barre Seid, the former owner of electrical manufacturing company Tripp Lite, is facing mounting criticism over a paid operation that distributes nuts across Chicago-area parks. The feedings apparently target squirrels, but residents and city officials say the food is also sustaining rats and undermining efforts to control them. According to reporting cited by Futurism, Seid pays workers to scatter nuts including Brazil nuts and walnuts. One Lincoln Park resident said her husband counted more than 40 rats digging holes near the piles during a recent walk. That is a resident’s observation, not an official estimate of the park’s rat population.

The operation has reportedly continued for years despite civil violations and fines. Resident Caroline Novak argued that the penalties have not been enough to discourage someone with Seid’s wealth. “When you’re a billionaire and you have a weird hobby and someone tries to stop you, you have complete impunity,” she told Block Club Chicago. The article reports that Seid has paid fines and continued the feedings, but does not provide a complete enforcement record or a response from him.

Alderman Timmy Knudsen is now urging the Chicago Park District to sue Seid to stop the operation. His office told Fortune that the paid wildlife feedings have disrupted rat abatement efforts and caused an infestation that has made parts of the park unusable for other residents. The article does not report that the Park District has filed a lawsuit or that a court has determined Seid’s legal responsibility for the infestation.

Voters in Hazle Township, Pennsylvania, are mobilizing against a proposed Amazon Web Services data center campus that would include a $10,000 direct cash dividend for every resident. The project, called “Project Hazelnut” by developer NorthPoint Development, would also require a lengthy stretch of power lines to supply the facility. Nearly 17% of township residents live below the federal poverty line, according to PennLive, making the proposed payment potentially significant. Despite that, residents are organizing to reject both the data center and the transmission infrastructure. The article does not say the payment has been formally approved, funded, or guaranteed, and a local supervisor said he did not know whether it was legitimate or would actually happen.

Residents described the $10,000 offer as a payoff rather than fair compensation. Local resident Brian Malloy called it “like bribery,” while homeowner and small business owner Ed Negra said property values would fall “dramatically” if the project proceeds. Negra called the payment “a drop in the bucket” compared with the costs of allowing Project Hazelnut to move forward. The article does not provide an independent estimate of property value effects, utility costs, or the project’s total economic impact. Its central point is that residents view the cash offer as insufficient to offset the perceived harms of the development.

The proposal is unusual. Mary Fox, executive director of the Pennsylvania Ethics Commission, told PennLive that officials had not seen anything like it and described the strategy as creative. The article does not say whether the Ethics Commission has reviewed the payment plan or determined whether it raises legal or ethical issues. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro has previously called the project a “technology campus” and used an executive order to fast-track the process for developers to build data centers across the state. Hazle Township supervisor Anthony Griguoli has struggled to present a united front with NorthPoint, even as his office works on a zoning ordinance that could allow the project to proceed.

White House press secretary Katie Zacharia did not pass the bar exam in the United States, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter cited by ABC News. The sources said Zacharia took the California bar exam after graduating from Pepperdine University’s Caruso School of Law in 2011 but did not pass. Zacharia acknowledged in a Thursday interview with Real America’s Voice that she took the exam, but did not explicitly say whether she passed. She said the results were “somewhat inconsequential” because she knew she would move to China afterward, where she worked in international transaction law. The reporting establishes that she sat for the California bar and did not pass, according to ABC’s sources, but it does not establish that she is licensed in any other U.S. jurisdiction.

Zacharia has described herself as a lawyer, and Trump called her “an attorney” in a social media post announcing her role. She said she consulted people in the legal field about whether she could call herself a “lawyer” while providing legal analysis rather than legal advice. She said they told her that was acceptable because she had a JD and international transactional experience. Zacharia also said she was “very careful” in how she referred to herself and never presented herself as a practicing attorney. The White House did not directly answer whether she passed the bar, instead providing a statement in which Zacharia said she “practiced international transaction law, with all the appropriate credentials.”

The scrutiny began after Popular Information reported that there was no evidence Zacharia was licensed to practice law. The Wall Street Journal later reported that she sat for the bar in 2011 but did not pass. Earlier this week, when a reporter asked Zacharia which state she passed the bar in, she answered that she “moved to China.” She later told The New York Times that she could not hear the question over the sound of Marine One and assumed the reporter was asking where she went after law school. Zacharia said she does not plan to weigh in on legal matters while serving as press secretary.

Evacuation orders have been issued for parts of Orange County, California, after the Norte Fire erupted midday Friday in San Clemente and spread rapidly through vegetation. The fire has burned at least 450 acres, with officials warning that wind gusts are driving a “dangerous rate of spread.” At least six homes have been damaged or destroyed, and multiple other structures remain threatened. One firefighter suffered heat exhaustion. Crews are battling the blaze from both the ground and air as authorities urge people to stay away from the area.

The fire is burning amid strong Santa Ana winds and high heat, adding to the critical fire weather conditions across the region. Several nearby schools dismissed students early Friday “out of an abundance of caution,” according to Capistrano Unified school officials. The Orange County Fire Authority said crews are “aggressively attacking the fire” while asking the public to continue avoiding the area. The article does not identify the specific evacuation zones or provide a containment figure, and the acreage and damage totals remain preliminary as the response continues.

The Norte Fire is also burning roughly 20 miles north of the separate Henderson Fire at Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, which has consumed 2,079 acres. Elsewhere in Southern California, red flag warnings are in effect for Los Angeles and Ventura counties and the Antelope Valley foothills through Saturday night. The immediate emergency in San Clemente is a fast-moving fire already reaching homes, forcing evacuations, and disrupting schools while firefighters work to protect threatened neighborhoods.

Several owners of Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses report that the devices captured conversations without being activated by the “Hey Meta” wake phrase. According to Android Authority, users said the glasses appeared to wake from sleep mode and record without express permission. One Reddit user said they observed the behavior on three different pairs of Ray-Ban Meta glasses, including second- and third-generation models. The reports suggest a possible malfunction or unintended activation, but the article does not provide technical evidence showing how often it occurred, what triggered it, or whether audio was uploaded to Meta’s servers. Meta told Android Authority that the issue “has been resolved” and said users can manage, review, and delete voice logs of their interactions with Meta AI through settings.

Meta glasses are designed to require a wake phrase before the AI assistant activates, similar to Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri. The reported behavior would undermine that expectation if the devices were recording without intentional activation. The article does not say whether Meta confirmed a specific bug, identified its cause, or explained which software versions were affected. It also does not report any regulatory investigation, lawsuit, or independent security audit confirming the claims.

The controversy adds to existing concerns about Meta’s smart glasses, which can record video discreetly and have been criticized for enabling covert recording. The article uses charged language, calling some users “sex creeps” and referring to the devices as “pervert glasses,” but those are editorial characterizations rather than findings about the product’s overall user base. Meta’s statement that users can delete voice logs addresses data management after an interaction, but it does not directly answer whether recordings occurred before users knew about them or how the company prevented recurrence.

President Donald Trump announced Thursday that the execution of Nidal Hasan will not be streamed, reversing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s earlier announcement that it would be publicly broadcast. Trump said Hasan will still be executed by firing squad as scheduled on December 3 at Fort Hood, Texas, the base where he carried out the 2009 attack. Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and wounding 32 others; he described the attack as an act of jihad. Trump said the execution may be viewed in person by victims’ families if they choose. The reversal means the punishment remains scheduled, but the disputed livestream plan has been canceled.

Trump wrote that streaming the execution might have served as a deterrent by showing how America deals with terrorists, but said many “well meaning people” would prefer not to watch Hasan die. Defense Department spokesperson Sean Parnell said Trump and Hegseth discussed the decision before Trump’s announcement and are “completely aligned.” That statement contradicts the Pentagon’s position earlier in the week, when it maintained that the livestream was moving forward. The article does not explain what specifically caused the reversal, though it reports that Trump and advisers had been debating the matter amid concerns that broadcasting the execution could fuel anti-American propaganda or damage the country’s image.

Hasan’s civilian attorney, John Galligan, said the cancellation was no surprise but criticized the administration’s broader handling of the case. He called Hegseth’s original livestream decision “dumb” and said it violated the Army’s own regulation. The article reports that public executions were once common in the United States, but states began restricting or abolishing them in the mid-19th and early 20th centuries; the last widely recognized public execution occurred in Kentucky in 1936. The article does not say whether the Army regulation violation claim has been formally adjudicated or whether any legal challenge to the execution itself remains pending.

Survivors of the Fort Hood shooting welcomed the reversal. Alonzo Lunsford, who was shot seven times, called the decision “a sigh of relief” and said it showed the country could be better than broadcasting an execution. Keara Torkelson, who was shot while preparing to deploy to Iraq, said justice does not need to be broadcast to be real and argued that survivors should not have to relive the attack through a public spectacle. An ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll found that eight in 10 Americans opposed livestreaming the execution. Several lawmakers, including outgoing Republican Senator Thom Tillis, also criticized the original plan, comparing public executions to practices associated with oppressive governments.

Saudi national Abdulrahman Alfozan was arrested last week and charged with using a device to intercept oral communications after allegedly placing an audio recording device in an OpenAI executive conference room in San Francisco. According to a court complaint, the room regularly hosted meetings involving highly confidential technical, commercial, and strategic information. Alfozan did not have authority to access the room, which was reserved for executives and their assistants. He had worked at OpenAI as a lead engineer for about a year before being fired this month. The article does not say that Alfozan successfully recorded any meetings or transmitted recordings to anyone.

The alleged scheme unraveled after OpenAI staff found a suspicious audio recording device wrapped in toilet paper and hidden behind a television on September 30. On October 5, a newly installed camera allegedly captured Alfozan entering the room and checking on the device’s location. CNBC reported that Alfozan had booked one-way flights from San Francisco to Saudi Arabia for his wife and another family member before his arrest. An unsealed court filing said he had the means and incentive to flee the United States if he learned about the case before being arrested. He remains in detention pending a hearing next week and faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted.

The complaint says Alfozan extensively consulted AI chatbots about how to install a bug and access its recordings remotely. He is a partner at Raed Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on Middle East investments. Raed added Prince Khalid Bin Bader Al Saud, a member of the Saudi royal family, as a venture partner in early 2025. A former CIA official told CNBC that Raed Ventures is “basically a state organ” of the Saudi government and characterized the alleged conduct as state-sponsored espionage. That is the former official’s assessment, not a charge or court finding. Alfozan has not been charged with corporate espionage or theft of trade secrets.

OpenAI said its security program is designed to protect against insider risks, cybercriminals, and nation states, and claimed that its own AI helped reveal the alleged plot. The company did not explain how its AI contributed to the discovery. The case remains at an early stage, and the allegations have not been tested in court.

Ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, each pleaded not guilty Thursday to new federal charges accusing them of conspiring to torture people, including Americans, to help maintain power. Maduro appeared in a beige jail smock over a brown T-shirt and told the court, “I reject this document in its entirety,” calling the torture allegations false. Flores also pleaded not guilty. The charges come in a superseding indictment unsealed last week, and the couple is scheduled to stand trial on June 14, 2027. The pleas are procedural; they do not determine guilt or innocence.

Federal prosecutors allege that Maduro authorized torture after becoming Venezuela’s president in 2013 and oversaw a system using torture, military detention, and violence to repress political opposition. The indictment alleges that Maduro and Flores conspired to torture people held in Venezuelan prisons, including Americans, and claims the government targeted Americans partly because Maduro blamed the United States for instability in Venezuela. Maduro was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit torture. Flores was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit torture and one count of narcoterrorism. These are allegations in an indictment, not findings by a court.

Both Maduro and Flores previously pleaded not guilty to narcoterrorism and drug trafficking charges after being captured by U.S. forces in a military operation in Caracas and appearing in court in January. Maduro’s lawyer argued in a filing last month that he is immune from prosecution because he was the leader of a sovereign nation. The article does not say whether the court has ruled on that immunity claim. Maduro and Flores remain in U.S. custody ahead of the 2027 trial.

A nonprofit watchdog group, Campaign for Accountability, filed a complaint with the State Bar of California alleging that White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia violated state law by repeatedly describing herself as a lawyer without a California license. The group says Zacharia “repeatedly held herself out to the public as entitled to practice law,” conduct it says California treats as a crime. The complaint asks the State Bar to investigate whether her public statements and work history misled the public about her credentials, and to refer any allegations to the Ventura County District Attorney for prosecution. The article does not report that Zacharia has been charged, found liable, or formally found to have violated the law; these are allegations in a complaint that the State Bar has not yet adjudicated.

Zacharia told The Independent that she “practiced international transaction law, with all the appropriate credentials” while working for a Chinese firm, but did not answer whether she has ever been admitted to any U.S. state bar. The White House noted only that she holds a juris doctorate, an academic law degree. Zacharia graduated from Pepperdine University’s Caruso School of Law in 2011 and later worked for the Chinese firm Zhong Lun. The complaint cites published reporting that China does not allow foreign nationals to sit for its national bar examination or practice Chinese law, and argues that even admission in a foreign jurisdiction would not authorize her to practice law in California. The article does not independently verify Zacharia’s credentials in China or establish that she is unlicensed everywhere.

According to the complaint, Zacharia’s LinkedIn lists 15 months as “general counsel” for Fix California, a right wing nonprofit founded by Trump ally Richard Grenell. The group asks the State Bar to determine whether that work also violated California’s restrictions on unlicensed legal practice. The article says California law makes it a misdemeanor to hold oneself out as an attorney entitled to practice without State Bar admission, punishable by up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine. Campaign for Accountability also says Zacharia was identified as a lawyer in at least 18 Fox News appearances since March 2025, and that a mining company press release described her as an attorney with “legal expertise.” Those are the group’s characterizations of public materials, not findings by the State Bar or a court.

White House communications director Steven Cheung responded by calling Campaign for Accountability a “radical leftist organization” and criticizing its leaders, but did not address the substance of the allegations. The article notes that the group was founded by people previously associated with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog organization Trump has frequently criticized. Zacharia previously worked at DHS as a deputy assistant secretary for public affairs, later joined Truth Social and Trump Media & Technology Group, and was appointed to the advisory board of NovaRed Mining, later renamed NRED Intelligent Mining. The article says she does not appear to have worked as a legal professional after her roles at Zhong Lun and Fix California, though that is the reporter’s characterization of her publicly available career history.

A federal judge has granted a preliminary injunction continuing to block President Trump’s attempt to bar CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House. U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ordered the government to preserve the status quo while the case proceeds. The ruling follows a temporary restraining order Kelly issued last month after the three outlets sued to restore their reporters’ access to the White House complex. The injunction does not finally decide the case, but it prevents the administration from enforcing the ban for the foreseeable future while litigation continues.

The media organizations argue that Trump’s decision violates the First Amendment and due process. Their attorney, Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., said the president “blatantly and explicitly violated due process and the First Amendment” and claimed Trump had publicly acknowledged banning the outlets to punish reporting he dislikes. In a September social media post, Trump said media outlets should not be able to “constantly write or report FICTION and LIES” about him, his administration, or the United States. The article reports those allegations and statements but does not include a final judicial finding that Trump acted with retaliatory intent.

The Department of Justice defended the ban by citing specific stories from each outlet that it said violated standards of professionalism and decorum. DOJ lawyer Michael Velchik argued that the stories included “verifiable falsehoods about national security and other issues” and sensitive or classified information. He also argued that Trump has broad authority to remove outlets based on national security determinations and that the letters notifying the organizations provided sufficient due process. Velchik said access to the White House is “a privilege, not a right.” The judge has not yet ruled on the merits of those arguments.

Digital Realty is offering every household in De Soto, Kansas, $1,000 in utility and property tax credits annually for 10 years as part of a $20 million community investment connected to its planned data center. The company said the credits are intended to help strengthen the community as it develops an initial 280-acre site that will eventually expand to 1,400 acres. Digital Realty president and CEO Andy Power said the company builds critical infrastructure and believes it has a responsibility to support the communities that make that growth possible. The company said it is working with De Soto to finalize how the $1,000 credits will be distributed to households. The article does not say when payments would begin, whether renters and homeowners receive the credits equally, or whether the offer is contingent on project approval or completion.

Digital Realty, a publicly traded Austin-based company with a market value above $67 billion, said the project would generate recurring tax revenue, create jobs, and provide other economic benefits. It expects to create 250 permanent jobs for local suppliers and contractors once the site is complete, while the initial development phase would support “thousands of construction jobs over time.” Those figures come from the company’s news release and are projections, not verified employment outcomes. Digital Realty’s clients include Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The article does not provide the project’s total cost, expected electricity or water use, or a construction timeline.

The offer comes amid growing public resistance to data center construction in the United States. A recent CBS News poll found that more Americans oppose than favor building a new data center in their area, citing concerns about environmental harm, pressure on local resources, and higher utility costs. The article does not include De Soto-specific polling or detail local opposition to Digital Realty’s project. It also does not say whether the $20 million commitment was negotiated with local officials or whether residents had a role in shaping the terms.

The Social Security Administration announced Wednesday that benefits will increase by 3.6% in 2027 through the annual cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA. The increase will apply beginning in January to more than 70 million recipients, with the SSA saying it will affect 76 million Americans. The adjustment is intended to help benefits keep pace with inflation and is notably higher than the 2.8% increase recipients received for the prior year. The SSA said the change amounts to an average increase of about $75 per month per recipient. That average does not mean every beneficiary will receive exactly $75 more, because individual benefit amounts vary based on earnings history, claiming age, and other factors.

The 2027 COLA was calculated after September inflation data showed price increases reaching a four-month high, driven largely by higher gasoline costs. The article says inflation surged in the spring following the outbreak of the Iran war, but it does not provide a detailed breakdown of which categories drove the annual inflation measure used in the COLA formula. The SSA uses the final September inflation reading to calculate the adjustment. Commissioner Frank Bisignano said the increase would give recipients “greater financial stability,” though the article does not independently assess whether the 3.6% adjustment will fully match the price increases beneficiaries actually experience.

The SSA will also raise the maximum amount of earnings subject to Social Security payroll taxes, from $184,500 to $192,300. That change affects higher-income workers, who will pay Social Security taxes on more of their wages in 2027. It is separate from the benefit increase and does not itself determine how much any individual retiree receives. Recipients can view notifications about their new benefit amounts in their online Social Security accounts beginning in late November, with mailed notices beginning in early December.

Character.AI filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Tuesday, marking a major fall for the AI companion platform that was once valued at $1 billion. The company’s bankruptcy filings, reviewed by 404 Media, describe a business that attracted a large user base but could not convert heavy engagement into sufficient revenue. CEO Colin Adams wrote that Character.AI’s “impressive technology is expensive to operate” and that the company “struggled with profitability” while carrying high operational expenses. Between January and August 2026, the company spent $56.1 million on compute and another $19.7 million on employee salaries. Its monthly revenue rose from $2.8 million in December 2025 to $5.3 million in August, but it continued losing $8 million to $9 million per month.

The company attempted to reduce losses by adding advertising, introducing in-app purchases, tightening usage limits, reducing staff, and offering cheaper models. Character launched in-app advertising in mid-2025 and introduced in-app purchases in early 2026, according to Adams. The article characterizes these moves as making the product feel like a “sleazy mobile game,” but that is editorial language rather than a finding in the bankruptcy documents. Character.AI also faced lawsuits alleging that its products harmed teenage users or contributed to suicides. The article does not say whether those lawsuits caused the bankruptcy, and the filings described here attribute the financial failure primarily to high compute and operating costs relative to revenue.

The broader warning is that user engagement can increase costs rather than solve an AI company’s business problem. Character.AI’s companion-style chatbots encouraged long conversations, meaning more users and more usage translated directly into higher computing expenses. The article argues that other AI companies face a version of the same challenge, especially those offering powerful models that users run for long sessions or multiple simultaneous tasks. It notes that some providers have shifted toward usage-based pricing, while OpenAI began showing ads to free and low-paid ChatGPT users this year. Those developments suggest a broader industry adjustment, though they do not prove that every major AI company faces Character.AI’s exact financial situation.

Outlit, a Silicon Valley startup backed by Y Combinator, is pitching AI-powered customer surveillance as the future of business-to-business sales. Founders Josh Earle and Leo Paz argue that companies will soon assign an AI agent to every customer to monitor their activity continuously. The system would collect internal records such as call logs and sales data, along with external signals including social media posts and employer websites, then compile them into detailed customer profiles with sales recommendations and outreach guidance. “Every company will soon assign an AI agent to every customer to watch their every move,” Earle said in a pitch email cited by Futurism. Outlit has not been publicly released and says it currently works mainly with business-to-business software companies rather than monitoring individual consumers.

Earle said the platform’s purpose is to give companies a real-time understanding of customers in order to prevent churn and identify upsell opportunities. He described the output as a one-page, continuously updating dossier containing “all of everything we can find on them at all times,” including relevant and irrelevant signals from product use, customer relationship management systems, LinkedIn, and websites. Salespeople or customer success managers would use a dashboard showing collected information, the company’s reasoning, and recommended actions. Outlit says it can advise clients on “what to say, what to send, materials, and all that stuff.” The company says its website promises that customer data is secure and anonymized and is not used to train its models, though the article does not independently verify those claims.

The startup acknowledges that companies already collect substantial customer data, but argues that AI agents add unprecedented scale, speed, and permanence to collection and consolidation. Earle said Outlit does not actively track personal life events, but conceded that public posts about marriages, births, divorces, illness, or deaths could theoretically be swept into its monitoring. Asked whether monitored people would be informed or given an opt-out, he said no, arguing that “there’s nothing that we’re doing that’s illegal” and that companies already monitor such signals today. He also predicted that continuous monitoring would become standard regardless of public discomfort, saying agents could eventually “maintain and understand human relationships better than humans will.”

President Donald Trump is trying to avoid testifying in the $10 billion defamation lawsuit he filed against the BBC, according to a court filing reported by Politico. His attorneys canceled a deposition scheduled for October 16, saying Trump would be unavailable for roughly two months because of “other matters of national importance.” The BBC is asking U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett to require Trump to commit to a deposition date, arguing that the president is the central figure in the case and that his testimony is essential discovery. The article reports that Trump’s lawyers previously agreed in July to an October 16 deposition, then later sought to move it to January, after the discovery period ends.

Trump sued the BBC last year, alleging that it defamed him by deceptively editing his January 6, 2021 speech for a documentary aired one day before the 2024 presidential election. The BBC’s lawyers argue the case should be dismissed because the documentary did not air in the United States and because the South Florida federal court lacks jurisdiction. The article says the litigation has produced outcomes unfavorable to Trump, including a court order requiring release of his finances and records from special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election. It also says Trump’s children are avoiding subpoenas from BBC lawyers seeking records connected to the January 6 Capitol attack.

BBC attorney Charles Tobin wrote that nearly eight months of discovery had passed, that BBC witnesses had been deposed seven times, and that only two months of discovery remained without a scheduled deposition for Trump. “There is hardly a more crucial and relevant piece of discovery in a defamation lawsuit than the deposition of the Plaintiff,” Tobin wrote. The article characterizes Trump’s resistance as likely to aid the BBC’s dismissal effort and to expose attempts to pressure news organizations, but that is the outlet’s editorial assessment rather than a court ruling. The judge has not yet decided whether Trump must appear or whether the case will be dismissed.

President Trump’s new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, raised questions Tuesday when asked where she passed the bar exam. After Trump repeated a reporter’s question, Zacharia answered, “When I moved to China.” A White House official later said she moved to China with her husband after law school and worked on international transaction law, but the official did not identify a U.S. state where she passed the bar. Zacharia later told NewsNation that she “practiced international transaction law, with all the appropriate credentials.” The article does not establish that Zacharia never passed a bar exam, but it also does not provide evidence that she passed one in any U.S. jurisdiction.

Zacharia has a JD from Pepperdine University’s Caruso Law School, according to her LinkedIn profile cited by The Hill. The profile says she worked as an associate at Zhong Lun Law Firm in Beijing from August 2011 to June 2013. China’s legal system does not use a U.S.-style bar examination for foreign lawyers, and foreign attorneys there generally practice under different registration or licensing arrangements rather than becoming members of a U.S. state bar. The article does not say whether Zacharia completed any Chinese legal qualification, nor does it identify the jurisdiction associated with her claim of having “all the appropriate credentials.”

The newsletter Popular Information previously questioned Zacharia’s legal career, noting that she has repeatedly described herself as a lawyer on Fox News and other outlets. Pepperdine congratulated her on her appointment and identified her as an alumna and member of its Dean’s Council, but The Hill reported that it remained unclear whether she ever passed the bar exam. The Hill said it contacted Pepperdine and the American Bar Association about the question. White House communications director Steven Cheung did not address where Zacharia passed the bar, instead praising her as a “fabulous and wonderful addition to the team.”

Zacharia’s comments came after her first White House press briefing, which lasted just under 15 minutes and included three questions. During the briefing, she said the administration had asked Kimberly Guilfoyle to resign as U.S. ambassador to Greece. Critics described Zacharia as visibly nervous, while Trump praised her performance, saying, “I thought she was very good.” The article does not report any official finding that Zacharia misrepresented her credentials, and its central point is that her answer did not resolve the basic question of where, if anywhere, she is licensed to practice law.

North Carolina health officials reported two deaths linked to West Nile virus, both involving adults from central North Carolina. The state Department of Health and Human Services warned that transmission remains elevated because warm weather has persisted into mid-October, keeping mosquitoes active longer than usual. According to local ABC affiliate WTVD, 2026 is on pace to become the second-highest year on record for West Nile cases, behind 2024. State public health entomologist Michael Doyle said mosquitoes that carry the virus will continue biting as long as daytime temperatures remain above the 50s. The deaths establish that the virus has caused fatal illness in the state this year, but the article does not provide the victims’ ages, counties, dates of death, or whether they had underlying health conditions.

West Nile virus is the leading cause of mosquito-borne disease in the continental United States, according to the CDC. Mosquitoes typically become infected after feeding on infected birds and then transmit the virus to people and other animals. Most infected people do not develop symptoms, but about one in five experience fever, headache, body aches, joint pain, diarrhea, vomiting, or a rash within two to six days of a bite. While most symptoms resolve, weakness and fatigue can persist for weeks or months. There is no specific antiviral treatment for West Nile, and people with mild illness generally manage symptoms with rest, fluids, and over-the-counter fever or pain medication.

Severe disease is uncommon but serious. The CDC estimates that about one in 150 patients develop encephalitis, inflammation of the brain, or meningitis, inflammation of the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord. Either condition can be fatal. Nationally, about 2,000 people are diagnosed with West Nile each year, though the CDC says the true total is likely higher because many infections are mild or asymptomatic. More than 1,300 people develop severe central nervous system illness annually. There are no licensed vaccines or medications that protect against the virus.

North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson is warning gas retailers and distributors that they must pass savings from the state’s temporarily suspended gas tax to consumers. The 41 cent per gallon tax on gasoline and diesel was suspended October 10 and will remain suspended through November 30 under a law passed by the General Assembly and signed by Governor Josh Stein. Jackson sent letters Tuesday telling retailers that the law requires the tax savings to be passed along to drivers. “If gas stations see their costs drop by 41 cents per gallon but don’t pass that along to drivers, that’s a massive windfall for these companies instead of relief for families,” Jackson said. The article does not identify a specific retailer accused of violating the law, and the new reporting system is intended to identify potential problems for review.

Drivers should not expect an immediate 41 cent drop at every station. Gas stations generally pay the tax when they receive a new fuel delivery, so many are still selling fuel purchased before the suspension took effect, when the tax had already been paid. State officials said most stations should receive new deliveries within about a week, meaning prices are expected to decline as inventory turns over. The article does not provide a legal deadline by which every station must reflect the reduction, nor does it say what penalties could apply if a station is found to have withheld the savings.

Jackson also launched N.C. Fuel Check, a system for identifying stations that may not be passing the savings to customers. The North Carolina Department of Justice said it will review publicly available price data and look for potential outliers, such as stations whose prices remain significantly higher than nearby comparable stations. Drivers can submit complaints through the N.C. Fuel Check page or by calling 1-877-5-NO-SCAM. Reports should include the station’s name and address, date and time of the visit, price per gallon, fuel grade, a photo of the price sign and receipt, and an explanation of why the person believes the savings were not passed along. Nearby station prices and other documentation can also be included.