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President Trump said he's asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to stop striking Russia's diesel refineries, arguing the attacks are squeezing global fuel supply rather than punishing Moscow alone. The timing is pointed: US diesel averaged above $6 a gallon on Friday, an all-time record. Trump also predicted the Iran conflict wraps up after the midterms, "maybe before."
The national average for regular gasoline hit a fresh 2026 high of $4.29, up 15 cents in a week and coming just nine days after the energy secretary said prices had "likely peaked." The University of Michigan's preliminary September sentiment index fell nearly 8 percent to 47.8, a four-month low, with pump and grocery prices doing the damage.
Treasury reported the federal deficit is approaching $2 trillion with 11 months of fiscal 2026 in the books, and bond markets are getting twitchy about it. There is one bright spot in the inflation data: core producer prices came in softer than expected, and core CPI eased to 2.4 percent, the lowest since March 2021.
Fresh off the GOP's first-ever midterm convention in Dallas, Trump is promising a $5,000 dividend to every adult citizen if Republicans hold both chambers, and says he'll personally campaign in roughly 35 of the closest races. Prediction markets still give Democrats about an 85 percent shot at the House while Republicans hold a narrow edge in the Senate.
Iran-backed Houthi forces captured the Red Sea port city of Mokha and an island in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait after Yemeni government troops conceded what they called a painful defeat, with roughly 80,000 people displaced since early September. US forces struck Iranian minelaying assets on Larak Island, Saudi Arabia shut its East-West Pipeline as a precaution, and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is pressing Washington for direct strikes on the Houthis.
Swedes went to the polls today to elect the Riksdag, with Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson trailing amid voter anger over migration, gang violence and a sluggish economy. It's the clearest test yet of whether Europe's rightward drift has more room to run.
An Indonesian passenger ship carrying about 240 people lost contact in the Java Sea today, triggering an urgent multi-vessel search. Indonesian crews were still working the vessel's last known position as of this afternoon.
British, Norwegian and American forces tracked and confronted Russian vessels near Norway's Svalbard archipelago, cutting short an exercise tied to alleged submarine operations around undersea communications cables. Those cables carry the overwhelming majority of global internet traffic, and they are largely unguarded.
NASA is testing a radiation-hardened processor meant to let spacecraft make decisions without waiting on Earth for instructions. Engineers targeted a 100-fold jump over today's spaceflight computers, and early bench testing has reportedly come in around 500 times faster.
Wisconsin Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany walked away after his plane lost power and ditched into a lake, then sank beneath the surface. Newly released dispatch audio captures rescuers calling for more ambulances and boats while tracking a cell phone's last GPS ping underwater. Tiffany and the other man aboard both survived.
