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With two weeks until the midterms, President Trump campaigns in North Carolina today after a Wichita, Kansas rally where he framed the election as a choice between Republicans and "extremists." A new Fox News poll puts his approval at 39%, with squeezed voters largely blaming his economy for stubborn inflation. Republicans are scrambling to defend a Senate majority that suddenly looks shaky.
The NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index dropped three points in October to 29 — the weakest reading since June 2012 — as mortgage rates keep climbing. Forty-three percent of builders reported cutting prices this month, the highest share of the entire 2020-2026 stretch. It's the clearest signal yet that higher-for-longer rates are grinding new construction to a halt.
Sahra Noor voluntarily spoke with federal investigators following Monday's DHS raid on the Minnesota congresswoman's Washington home, where agents seized her phone, passport, notebooks and computers. Investigators had earlier seized Noor's phone, and family text messages reportedly supplied the basis for the judge-approved warrant in the immigration fraud probe. Noor canceled a Minnesota stop on her book tour amid the fallout.
Former Senator Joe Manchin, who left the Democratic Party before retiring, is swinging through Maine to campaign for Republican Senator Susan Collins, calling her "not a Trump senator." It's a pointed rebuke to Chuck Schumer, who has been working hard to unseat Collins. Maine is a seat Democrats essentially must flip to retake the majority.
French officials imposed perimeter decrees barring gatherings in parts of Paris after a weekend of arson and looting, with roughly 550,000 people marching Saturday against the cost of living. At least 2,400 have been arrested nationwide and nearly 1,000 police and firefighters injured. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez offered to resign Monday over what's being called a massive intelligence failure, and the US has issued a security alert for travelers.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says Tehran and Moscow have never "worked as closely" as they do now, while warning the US and Israel they have "unfinished jobs" too. Qatar's Foreign Ministry insists US-Iran peace talks are ongoing as of Tuesday, though neither side has confirmed it. Doha also says it will announce a regional defense partnership with several Middle Eastern countries within days.
North Korean state media published photos Monday of Kim Jong Un touring a clothing and shoe expo with his daughter — his first public appearance in about 20 days. The images followed a weekend of viral social-media claims, sourced to a Chinese dissident, that he had suffered a brain hemorrhage and died. He appeared healthy in the photos, which is rather the point of releasing them.
Cychlorphine, an unregulated synthetic opioid up to ten times more potent than fentanyl, has now been linked to at least 55 deaths across multiple states. Tennessee was the early hotspot, with more than 30 fatal overdoses since October 2025. LA County public health warns that a very small amount can stop someone's breathing; one addiction specialist called it "the new fentanyl on steroids."
At SpaceX's McGregor, Texas rocket facility, a Roadster prototype ran up a curved ramp held on by a suction fan pulling two Gs, then fired four SpaceX-derived cold-gas thrusters and launched itself over a row of Cybertrucks and Model Ys. Nobody was inside — the whole stunt ran on automated controls. Tesla claims zero to sixty in under nine-tenths of a second, though refilling that 600-liter gas system takes six or seven hours. Production is slated for 2028.
A Purdue University expedition searching Nikumaroro Island for Earhart's Lockheed Electra has run into an unexpected obstacle: enormous coconut crabs whose pincers generate more crushing force than a human bite. The team has retreated to sleeping aboard its vessel rather than camp on the island. Eighty-nine years on, the mystery is now being guarded by crustaceans.
