“The Democratic National Committee on Wednesday sued President Donald Trump’s administration for recent television advertisements that promoted his political message while costing taxpayers millions of dollars. The complaint, filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that the ads are illegal government-sponsored propaganda and accuses Trump of personally directing them. It asks the court to declare the ads illegal and stop the use of federal funds to pay for them. … The spots, which began airing in September, already have cost more than $12 million to run, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact, and a total of $20 million in Homeland Security Department funding has been tapped to pay for them.” (10/07/26)
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“An oil tanker off Russia’s Black Sea coast was struck by a naval drone, triggering a huge fire and black smoke cloud that blanketed parts of the resort city of Sochi, Russia’s transport ministry has said. The transport ministry said a Liberian-flagged tanker had been attacked and that ‘crude oil is burning openly in the waters of the Black Sea’. … A crew of 23 – all Indian citizens – had been rescued, it added. Russia and Ukraine have targeted commercial shipping around the Black Sea since the conflict began, and Russia has recently attacked grain vessels carrying Ukrainian goods near the coast of Romania. There was no comment from Kyiv on the attack.” (10/07/26)
“Immigration and Customs Enforcement leadership told [gang members] nationwide on Tuesday to increase immigration [abductions] by 1,000 more people daily, returning to a previous goal of 3,000 daily [abductions], according to two sources familiar with the verbal directive. It’s the latest sign of ongoing pressure on [gang members] as the Trump administration doubles down on its immigration crackdown despite some Republican unease over who the agency is targeting. ICE also recently released a contract solicitation to expand holding space at agency offices, citing ‘exceptionally high operational tempo with increased [abductions].'” (10/08/26)
“An updated report from the Congressional Research Service, or CRS, now lists 81 U.S. military aircraft as lost or damaged since the United States launched Operation Epic Fury against Iran on Feb. 28. That is nearly double the 42 aircraft the research service counted in May, as Defense News reported at the time. The Oct. 5 revision adds jets damaged in a September Iranian strike on a base in Jordan, helicopter losses drawn from a Pentagon inspector general report and a sharply higher count of lost Reaper drones. CRS cautions that the total is not a count of destroyed aircraft, noting, ‘Some damaged aircraft may have been returned to active service.'” (10/07/26)
“Tariff inflation has a long tail. Higher import costs can ripple through U.S. supply chains, with effects on domestically produced goods emerging as much as a year later, according to Federal Reserve Bank of New York researchers. The inflation hit from 2025 tariffs is fading, but newer levies are still feeding through to prices as inflation is already too high for policymakers’ comfort. … The authors previously found that U.S. companies and consumers bore most tariff costs earlier this year — research that Trump economic officials sharply criticized. … The researchers estimate that President Trump’s tariffs added 2.9 percentage points to consumer goods inflation by February 2026 (excluding services and oil).” (10/07/26)
“A former Kentucky Congressional candidate and well-known donor of Donald Trump’s MAGA has come under scrutiny after a report on his alleged text exchanges with Kimberly Guilfoyle, the US Envoy to Greece and former fiancé of Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr. On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal published an explosive report alleging that Kimberly Guilfoyle allegedly texted Kentucky MAGA donor Eric Deters to pay her $100,000 credit card bill, offering multiple favors in return. The favors included using her connection in the Trump administration to help Deters with his issues with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of Justice.” (10/07/26)
“U.S. mortgage rates climbed for a seventh straight week to 7.49%, their highest level since November 2023, according to Mortgage Bankers Association figures released Wednesday, according to Bloomberg. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate climbed 19 basis points for the week ending Oct. 2, bringing its total gain over the past three weeks to roughly half a percentage point — the steepest three-week advance since early 2023. Total mortgage application volume fell 4.2% from the prior week.” (10/07/26)
“The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to two organic chemists for ‘for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis.’ Dr. Henri B. Kagan, 96, professor emeritus at Université Paris-Sud, France, and Dr. Kenso Soai, 76, professor emeritus at Tokyo University of Science, Japan, share the prize for their work, which could change the future of pharmaceuticals. … Some molecules like amino acids exist as two variants that are each other’s mirror image, but living organisms only contain one side of the image, which makes them homochiral. The other side is rarely found in nature. How this happened was a mystery to chemists. Kagan and Soai solved the puzzle.” (10/07/26)
“The pharmaceutical industry’s top lobby group on Wednesday sued to invalidate one piece of the Trump administration’s efforts to benchmark US drug prices to lower costs overseas in the Medicare health insurance program, arguing that it is an illegal overreach by the US government. … The PhRMA lobby group filed its lawsuit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia against Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the US Department of Health and Human Services he runs, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and two of its officials. The lobby group argues in its lawsuit that CMS, Medicare’s regulator, has stretched the authority of a program to test new pricing ideas into rewriting Medicare’s pricing structure without congressional action.” (10/07/26)
