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Country music's most beloved icon has passed away at age 80, with the news announced by her nephew in an Instagram video. Parton had spent months quietly battling an undisclosed health issue. She was preceded in death by her husband of nearly six decades, Carl Thomas Dean, who died in March 2025.
A divided Supreme Court lifted a Massachusetts judge's block on President Trump's election integrity executive order in a 6-3 emergency ruling, without deciding the order's underlying legality. The order directs Homeland Security to compile citizenship lists for each state ahead of federal elections. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson fired back with a 23-page dissent warning the ruling "needlessly injects chaos and uncertainty into the upcoming midterm elections."
Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 1,328 illegal immigrants across Virginia and Maryland in just 14 days under "Operation Safe Community — Washington, D.C." Nearly 400 of those arrested had criminal convictions or pending charges, including a Salvadoran national wanted on a murder warrant out of Richmond. Officers also picked up members of MS-13, Tren de Aragua, and the 18th Street Gang.
Two softer-than-expected inflation reports pushed the S&P 500 to a fresh record high and convinced investors the Fed will hold rates steady in September. The benchmark rate sits at 3.5 to 3.75 percent, and Chairman Kevin Warsh has pulled back sharply on forward guidance. Inflation is still running above the Fed's 2 percent target, so most traders still expect at least one hike before year's end.
Tehran claims it has a two-year plan to absorb the unprecedented sanctions wave the administration calls Operation Economic Outcast, targeting shipping, aviation, gold, and digital assets. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says Iranian leadership is already admitting the pressure is working. Iranian oil shipments to China have collapsed to roughly 534,000 barrels a day, down from 823,000 in July, and the Navy has cleared mines from the Strait of Hormuz.
After a 50 percent US tariff on $28 billion of Canadian goods took effect Saturday, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced matching retaliation beginning September 8. The Canadian counter-tariffs run from 15 to 50 percent and cover steel, aluminum, dairy, seafood, appliances, lumber, and clothing. Ontario's premier is now urging Ottawa to be ready to cut off electricity and critical mineral exports.
A Boeing C-17A Globemaster III was filmed on approach to Moscow's Vnukovo airport after departing Joint Base Andrews and routing through Riga, Latvia. The Department of War said only "we have nothing to provide on this subject," and the Kremlin claimed it had no information about the flight. It is the first direct US military flight into Russia since Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner visited Putin in January.
SpaceX unveiled plans for Starbase Louisiana, a $100 billion facility on the south-central Gulf Coast designed to eventually support more than 30 Starship flights per day. With over a dozen launch towers planned, it would be the largest launch site on Earth. The company projects 3,000 direct new jobs over the next decade at an average salary of $92,600.
Archaeologists working a wreck off Croatia's island of Mljet recovered more than 1.3 pounds of gold, the largest amount ever pulled from a Mediterranean shipwreck. The ship dates to the late seventh or early eighth century A.D., and the haul includes gold coins, jeweled buckles, and a signet ring. Researchers believe a powerful figure from the Byzantine Empire went down with the vessel.
Amid the tariff standoff, the president posted on Truth Social that the US is "giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don't expect to doing much business with Ontario any longer." It follows his earlier order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. Trump also disputed Carney's claim that French-language protections were a US demand in the collapsed trade talks.
