Fox News, ABC, CBS and NBC suspended the White House television pool Monday in solidarity with CNN, MS NOW and Politico, all three of which Trump barred from the building over what he called "fake news." The administration didn't blink — it debuted "Trump TV: The Essentials Station" at 7 p.m. ET the same night, and the president's first remarks without a pool got partly drowned out by background noise. CNN, Politico and MS NOW have sued, calling the ban an unconstitutional assault on press access.
The Eighth Circuit ruled Monday that Missouri must use its 2025 congressional map in November — the Republican-drawn lines that produce a 7-1 GOP advantage instead of 6-2. The panel stayed its permanent injunction until September 28 to give the Supreme Court room to weigh in, after the Missouri Supreme Court had ordered the old maps used. With 44 days to the midterms, the justices are about to decide which ballots Missourians actually get.
The national average for regular gas is hovering near $4.32 a gallon, up roughly 30 cents in a month, with West Texas Intermediate crude above $100 on the Iran war disruption. Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh's committee responded last week with a unanimous quarter-point hike to 3.75-4 percent, the first increase in more than three years. Critics on the right are arguing the Fed is punishing American workers for a supply shock that rate hikes can't touch.
Trump opened the White House's new heliport Monday with oversized gold scissors, flanked by construction workers in safety vests and Lockheed Martin CEO Jim Taiclet. He posted on Truth Social celebrating Marine One's "maiden voyage" from the pad, noting the government had been kicking the idea around for about 25 years. It's the latest physical mark he's left on the complex.
The 81st General Assembly's general debate opens this morning, and Trump speaks right after Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, with nearly 130 heads of state in the room. UN Ambassador Mike Waltz says the themes are sovereignty and peace deals, with a hard line that Iran must never get a nuclear weapon. Zelensky, who says his New York sit-down with Trump "could change a lot," speaks Wednesday alongside Iran's Masoud Pezeshkian.
The president reportedly aborted planned airstrikes on Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis Sunday while US personnel were actively loading munitions onto aircraft. The operation had been prepped after Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman renewed his request for American help, but Trump opted to hold — betting for now on economic pressure over military escalation. Separately, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Monday the bloc's Red Sea naval mission is simply too small and needs more warships.
Acting President Delcy Rodríguez arrived in New York and is set for a pull-aside with Trump today on the sidelines of a UN reception. It's the first in-person meeting between the two governments since Nicolás Maduro was pushed out and Washington and Caracas restored ties after a seven-year freeze. The backdrop is August's oil agreement granting the US control over 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan reserves.
Stanford researchers have successfully transplanted human brain tissue into living mice to study neurological disorders, and the ethics debate is getting loud. The team reportedly halts each experiment once the human cells hit a six-month developmental milestone, a deliberate guardrail meant to keep anything resembling consciousness from emerging. Critics argue nobody has a reliable way to know where that line actually sits.
Riding the momentum of the crewed Artemis II lunar flyby, NASA says the first three uncrewed moon base missions are targeted to launch by the end of 2026. The first is billed as the first privately funded lunar lander mission in history, expected this fall. Meanwhile the agency's new $4.3 billion Roman Space Telescope is already on orbit hunting exoplanets and probing dark energy.
A researcher who goes by "Snake," founder of the Bigfoot Research Organization, claims remains he recovered in New York's Adirondacks came back from a DNA test as 58.5 percent Neanderthal and 41.5 percent human. He laid out the whole story on Fox News Radio's Planet Tyrus. Matt Moneymaker — arguably the most famous name in Bigfoot circles — flatly calls it a hoax.
