The justices kicked off the 2026–27 term Monday with oral arguments in Suncor Energy v. Commissioners of Boulder County, testing whether local governments can use state law to sue oil companies over climate change. The bench sounded genuinely split, and a ruling for Boulder would open the floodgates for copycat suits nationwide. Gun rights, religious liberty, and two immigration detention cases are also queued up among the 28 cases already granted.
Forecasters are penciling in a blue wave, with Fox News polling showing Democrats at their best generic-ballot number since 1996 and the Cook Political Report projecting a House flip. Democrats need just six seats, and they lead the polling averages in North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, and even Texas. Republicans are countering with a massive money advantage and a Trump campaign swing he's billing as a 32-day tour.
The Atlanta Fed's nowcast has third-quarter GDP growth running near 5 percent, with the Dow up 8.1 percent and the S&P up 13.5 percent on the year. But the national average for gas sits around $4.37 a gallon with more than 30 states above four bucks, inflation is at 3.4 percent, and 34 percent of voters name cost of living their top issue. Trump's approval on prices is stuck in the mid-20s.
President Trump on Monday approved execution by U.S. Army firing squad for Nidal Malik Hasan, the former Army major convicted in the 2009 Fort Hood massacre that killed 13 people. Hasan has sat on military death row for 13 years, and no U.S. service member has been executed since 1961. The decision clears the final presidential hurdle required under military law.
Explosions rocked Riyadh as the Iran-backed Houthis claimed strikes on King Khalid International Airport, an Aramco refinery at Rabigh, Abha airport, and the Khamis Mushait air base, prompting a U.S. Embassy security alert. The Saudi-led coalition answered with Operation Dawn of Yemen — roughly 100 fighter jets against 324 targets — while Yemeni ground forces claimed full control of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and Perim Island. WTI crude slipped below $90 after the G7 pledged 100 million barrels from emergency reserves.
Trump confirmed the U.S. relocated B-1 bombers from RAF Fairford because of credible threats, saying flatly, "they didn't fly out by accident." He warned Tehran it would "suffer greatly" if combat drones reached UK airspace and predicted the seven-month war ends "very soon, one way or the other." Treasury simultaneously warned foreign banks that doing business with Iran could trigger sanctions with no advance notice.
More than 5,000 people have been arrested since the lycée protests began two weeks ago — 87 percent of them minors, with over 1,800 facing prosecution. Education Minister Édouard Geffray says 190 students and 78 staff have been injured, plus more than 600 police officers, forcing full or partial closures at 400 to 500 high schools. It started over teacher shortages and crumbling buildings at one school outside Paris.
The Royal Swedish Academy awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics this morning to Francis Halzen of the University of Wisconsin–Madison for the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos from deep space. IceCube is a cubic kilometer of South Pole ice wired with light sensors that catch ghost particles from the universe's most violent events. It's a rare solo Nobel in physics.
Monday's medicine prize went jointly to Stanford's Karl Deisseroth, Humboldt University's Peter Hegemann, and Würzburg's Georg Nagel for light-gated ion channels and optogenetics. The technique lets researchers flip individual neurons on and off with light, cracking open how the brain handles learning, fear, addiction, and movement. It traces back to a light-sensing protein found in pond algae.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg officers conducted a traffic stop on two men riding a love seat down South Tryon Street — the couch straddling a pair of rented Lime scooters. The department called it "certainly a first" and reminded residents to put safety first while, to its credit, appreciating the creativity. No word on whether anyone was cited.
