A 16-year-old gunman killed three children — ages five, eight and eleven — and 25-year-old teacher Meghan Lambert at Silver Rail Elementary in Bend, Oregon on Thursday before a concealed-carry permit holder shot him dead inside the building. Police identified the bystander as 36-year-old Kaylub Giamanco, a carpenter and father of two students at the school who was driving home for lunch when he heard gunfire. Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz gave an update Friday, confirming a classroom teacher threw her phone at the shooter and tackled him before Giamanco arrived.
With Election Day less than three weeks away and both chambers in play, candidates clashed in debates across the map Friday while President Trump rallied in Dalton, Georgia. The Justice Department announced charges against 16 noncitizens for alleged illegal voting and election-related offenses in North Carolina, New York and Idaho. Meanwhile the "No Kings" network — some 300 progressive groups — is staging thousands of early-vote events today, after organizers were caught circulating "Vote Blue" messaging the coalition publicly says it bans.
Homeland Security Investigations raided Rep. Ilhan Omar's Washington home on October 12, seizing her phone, passport and computers as part of a criminal fraud probe into decades-old citizenship paperwork filled out by her late father. The DOJ has since subpoenaed relatives including her sister Sahra Noor, and US Attorney Jeanine Pirro opened a separate probe into Omar's financial disclosures. Omar calls it an attempt to "target political enemies" and says she will not be silenced; a conservative watchdog predicts more revelations are coming.
Katie Zacharia has exited as White House press secretary after barely a week, saying it was an "honor" to serve; Trump says there's no rush to name a replacement. Her departure lands the same week legislative affairs director James Braid stepped down after shepherding the administration's megabill and tax package through Congress. Two senior exits in one week, three weeks before the midterms, is not the communications posture any White House plans for.
Iranian Army spokesman Mohammad Akraminia said Saturday that if America leaves the region the Strait of Hormuz reopens — and if it doesn't, "we'll expel it," while claiming Iran's air defenses now exceed pre-war levels. Two tankers were attacked Friday near Al Jubayl, one by an unknown projectile and one by an RPG fired from a small boat. Brent is holding above $105, diesel averages $6.28 a gallon nationwide against $3.68 a year ago, and Egypt's President el-Sisi pledged "any measure" to defend Saudi Arabia after a Houthi strike killed 12 at Riyadh's airport.
Trump signed an executive order Friday waiving sanctions, restrictions and duties on the five largest purchasers of Russian oil and gas, declaring the move "in the national interests of the United States" without specifying how. It follows his diesel arrangement with Vladimir Putin — more than 300,000 tons shipped immediately with more to come — and sidesteps a sanctions law named for Sen. Lindsey Graham. Ukrainian officials say they were never told about the "energy ceasefire" Trump announced on October 11, and European delegates have rejected a Witkoff-Kushner proposal to unfreeze Russian assets.
After more than three weeks of school blockades, France's major CGT union has thrown in behind the youth protests, demanding higher wages and pensions and lower prices. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez says hundreds of actions and more than 80 marches are expected nationwide Saturday, drawing former Yellow Vests, university students, climate activists and farmers. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu convened a crisis meeting Thursday as his looming austerity budget becomes the movement's central grievance.
Elon Musk unveiled the next-generation Roadster at SpaceX's McGregor, Texas facility, where the car hovered, executed a midair "kick flip" over a lineup of vehicles and a semi-truck, and drove upside down. Four cold gas thruster nozzles borrowed from SpaceX provide the lift, paired with an underbody fan suction system that engineering VP Lars Moravy says generates up to 2Gs of downforce. Top speed is pegged at 230 mph with 300-plus miles of range; the grounded "Performance" trim takes a $50,000 deposit and the thruster-equipped "Thrust" version wants $250,000, with production set for 2028.
Researchers at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute re-ran childhood obesity numbers using the new Lancet Commission clinical definition, which weighs how body fat actually affects blood pressure, sleep and mobility rather than relying on BMI alone. Under that standard, the share of kids classified as clinically obese drops substantially. The finding suggests doctors may have been over-diagnosing based on a crude height-and-weight ratio, with real consequences for how children get treated.
A team led by professor Cenker Atila of Sivas Cumhuriyet University spent roughly 90 days collecting about 1,000 soil samples from 150 locations at the Durupınar formation near Mount Ararat. Samples from inside the boat shape showed three times the organic matter and 38 percent more potassium — a marker of wood ash — than soil just outside it, with an eightfold pH difference, and core drilling past 60 feet found no bedrock. Most geologists still consider the formation a natural product of folding, landslides and erosion, and nothing so far independently establishes it is man-made.
