THANK YOU to subscribing contributors WSS3, MM, and ES, and to long-time supporters RB and SZ! Their contributions yesterday, totaling $170, bring our annual fundraiser total (as of 5am) to $990.50!
That gets us to 1/3 of our goal (once we’ve raised $2,751.50, supporter GL will “match funds” to make it $5,503) … and once we reach that goal, I’ll stop hectoring you about money completely for the rest of the year, and almost completely until next October. So:
PLEASE SUPPORT THE FREEDOM MOVEMENT’S DAILY NEWSPAPER!
We don’t do FIREHOSE FRIDAYS very often these days, in part because we now include extra web-only content, above and beyond our 60-item email digest, EVERY day, but it’s worth turning on the water every once in a while both to call attention to how much content we’re collecting for you and to drag you over to the web edition where you might …
… and today we’ve got more than 100 news stories, opinion pieces, and audio video links lined up for you at the web site.
Since the firehose is already on at both the content and fundraising ends, let’s keep it on over the weekend — our “mini-goal” is to hit the $1,500 mark by 5am on Monday. I’ve already given you that URL in big letters twice above.
Have a happy, healthy, and prosperous weekend!
Yours in liberty,
Tom Knapp
Publisher
Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily
“Five people have been killed and 16 injured in a Houthi missile attack targeting the presidential palace in the port city of Aden in southern Yemen, which is the seat of the [Saudi puppet regime], officials say. Information Minister Moammar al-Eryani told the BBC that the prime minister and other ministers were unhurt when five ballistic missiles hit al-Maashiq Palace. The Houthis’ military spokesman, Yahya Sarea, said they struck ‘the Saudi enemy’s military operations headquarters in Aden’.” (10/15/26)
“A Trump donor who Kimberly Guilfoyle allegedly asked to wire her $100,000 has sued the former ambassador to Greece, alleging she defamed him when she disputed the allegations against her. Eric Deters, a talk radio host, former lawyer and unsuccessful Republican candidate for Kentucky governor and a House seat, said he sued Guilfoyle over her statements to the Wall Street Journal after the newspaper published messages that appear to show the former ambassador asking him to wire $100,000 to her American Express account. … Deters said he planned to depose Guilfoyle and Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son who was engaged to Guilfoyle for years, claiming the case ‘might bring down the entire Trump administration, an administration I have supported since Day 1.'” (10/15/26)
“Ukrainian drones attacked a refinery in Russia’s Ryazan region early Thursday, hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that a brief truce spurned by Moscow was over amid deepening tensions with Washington. The drone strike started a fire at the refinery about 300 kilometers (180 miles) southeast of Moscow, Russia’s Defense Ministry and Ryazan Gov. Pavel Malkov said. Russia’s Astra online news outlet posted what it said was a photograph of the blaze. A senior Ukrainian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly, confirmed that Ukraine had hit the refinery. … Three people were killed and six others injured after the Kirovohrad region of central Ukraine came under a Russian drone attack lasting more than 10 hours, Ukraine’s Emergency Services said Thursday.” (10/15/26)
“President Trump on Wednesday said he was canceling the livestream of the [killing] of Nidal Malik Hasan, the former U.S. Army major who killed 13 people in the 2009 attack on Fort Hood. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had said the [killing] would be livestreamed, a decision that had come under substantial criticism, including from GOP senators who said it would bring the U.S. to the level of terrorist groups who broadcast [killings]. Trump in his statement said he had heard that criticism, and he said that while Hasan deserved to be [killed], it would not be livestreamed. He also argued the livestream might have deterred terrorists.” (10/15/26)
“The former leader of [British-occupied] Ireland’s main pro-British party, Jeffrey Donaldson, received a 15-year prison sentence Thursday for sexually abusing two schoolgirls. Donaldson, 63, kept his hands clasped together but offered no visible reaction as Judge Paul Ramsey said the former Democratic Unionist Party leader must serve an 11-year sentence for raping one girl and a further 4-year term for sexually abusing another. … Donaldson was an MP representing Lagan Valley from 1997 to 2024, first for the moderate Ulster Unionist Party and then — after belatedly breaking with the party over its support for the Good Friday peace accord of 1998 — as a member of the hard-line DUP. Donaldson became DUP leader in 2021, when he oversaw the collapse of [occupied] Ireland’s power-sharing government in a bitter dispute over the region’s peculiar post-Brexit trade rules.” (10/15/26)
“A list obtained by The Washington Post reveals all the major donors to President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom project, including previously undisclosed contributors who have benefited from regulatory decisions, government contracts and, in one case, a pardon for a family member. Tech giants Nvidia and Apple each committed $25 million, the top contribution amount, the list shows. The Adelson family, one of the GOP’s largest donor dynasties, committed that sum as well, as did billionaire Charles Ergen, co-founder and chairman of telecommunications company Dish Network. Absent from the list is Trump himself, who has said that he is helping to pay for the project.” (10/15/26)
“After a 28-minute-long bidding war, a fully functional ‘Hatfield’ Apple-1 computer sold at Bonhams for $1.15 million on Oct. 14, setting a new world auction record for commercially released Apple-1 computers, the institution said in a recent news release. The primitive personal computer, which was created by engineer Steve Wozniak in 1976, includes a signed letter from Steve Jobs, the original operations manual and a typed invitation to the ‘Apple I Owners Club,’ as well as several hardware components. Perhaps most importantly, Wozniak’s signature is on the motherboard, which still operates 50 years later. Born in San Jose in 1950, Wozniak met Steve Jobs when they were still mischievous teenagers hacking into public telephone networks. Together, they collaborated on the Apple-1 and brought it to the Homebrew Computer Club, a group of hobbyists who gathered in Menlo Park to exchange ideas about personal computing, which was still a novel concept in the mid-1970s.” (10/15/26)
“Venezuela’s former leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, appeared in court on Thursday to plead not guilty to new charges of conspiracy to commit torture. The US government initially accused Maduro of narco-terrorism, drug trafficking and weapons-related offenses, before adding new charges against him and Flores last week. Maduro and Flores were captured in January during a US military raid, after which they were taken to New York, where they remain in jail. The couple has pleaded not guilty to the allegations and both have argued to have the case thrown out on the grounds that they qualify for sovereign immunity. Their trial is scheduled for June 2027. In a new indictment last week, government prosecutors alleged Maduro and Flores ‘created and maintained a violent system of repression’ that saw ‘thousands of Venezuelans’ killed, harassed, and tortured.” (10/15/26)
“The federal government sued the state of California on Thursday in an escalating battle over how to prevent non-U.S. citizens from voting by mail in federal elections. The lawsuit is the latest action by the Department of Justice targeting state administration of elections, which President Donald Trump has often criticized as susceptible to fraud and voting by noncitizens. The civil complaint, which the DOJ had threatened to file, asks a judge to prevent California officials from tabulating mail-in ballots ‘from likely non-citizens in the upcoming federal election until the voter’s citizenship status can be determined.’ The Department of Justice asks that a judge order the state to set aside mail ballots from voters ‘identified by the Federal Government likely to be noncitizens,’ and to verify their citizenship status before their ballot is counted.” (10/15/26)
