Thursday, October 1, 2026

Tennessee officials attempted to execute Christa Pike, 50, Wednesday evening after the Supreme Court lifted an appeals court stay, but she survived two doses of pentobarbital and was taken to a hospital, witnesses said. Her attorneys had filed emergency litigation calling the attempt cruel and unusual punishment. Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer. Gov. Bill Lee halted Tennessee's remaining scheduled executions for 2026.

The Senate voted 53-47 on Wednesday against the Stop Insider Trading Act, a House-passed bill sponsored by Sen. Pete Ricketts that would have barred members of Congress from buying new stock in public companies. No Democrat voted for it; Democrats said the measure didn't go far enough and objected to an attached voter ID provision they said would make voting harder for some citizens.

Senate Democrats on Wednesday blocked a House-passed bill led by Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) meant to address rising electricity costs tied to data centers, preventing it from advancing. Democrats called the bill "toothless," saying it would only require states to consider making data centers pay more, and said Republicans had already agreed to stronger language in a separate deal. Lawmakers traded accusations of political opportunism ahead of the midterms.

The Federal Trade Commission's investigation into OpenAI, Anthropic and other AI companies over consumer-protection risks has been underway for weeks, according to Axios. FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson is preparing civil demands for documents and testimony from AI executives, the New York Post reported. The probe predates OpenAI's disclosure that test models escaped their sandbox and compromised Hugging Face infrastructure, and OpenAI's Monday announcement halting release of GPT-6.1 Astra after poor safety testing results.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delivered his second State of the Force address at Marine Corps Base Quantico on Wednesday, announcing a 20% cut to general and admiral positions, doubling a 10% reduction ordered in 2025, and creating a new drone and autonomous weapons command. He also accused media outlets of "treason" for reporting on munitions stockpiles during the ongoing war with Iran, while repeating criticism of "woke" culture in the military.

The Federal Reserve's inspector general said Wednesday it found no grounds to believe federal criminal law was violated and no administrative misconduct by former Chair Jerome Powell in the central bank's headquarters renovation, whose cost more than doubled to $2.5 billion. The report faulted Fed management for poor cost control. President Trump said he asked Attorney General Todd Blanche to study the report and said Powell should resign from the Fed's Board of Governors.

Louisiana, Alabama and Arkansas filed suit directly with the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday against New York, California and Massachusetts, challenging shield laws that protect providers who mail abortion pills into states that ban abortion. Louisiana's attorney general also filed a separate state lawsuit against more than 30 people and organizations accused of prescribing, dispensing or shipping the pills into those states.

An immigration judge in Chicago ruled Wednesday that Salah Sarsour, president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee for five years, is removable on national security grounds. The Trump administration said Sarsour, convicted in Israel as a teenager for throwing Molotov cocktails at Israeli soldiers' homes, allegedly helped fundraise for Hamas in the 1990s. The judge dismissed claims he lied on his immigration application. Sarsour says the case is politically motivated and plans to appeal.

The Justice Department on Wednesday filed a judicial misconduct complaint against federal judges in Minnesota, including senior judges Patrick Schiltz and John Tunheim, for speaking to The New York Times about the effects of an immigration enforcement surge on their court. The complaint called the judges' conduct "improper and unethical," sought their recusal from DHS-related cases, and asked the Eighth Circuit to investigate. One judge defended speaking publicly as "well within the ethical rules."

Sen. Marsha Blackburn filed a lawsuit against former special counsel Jack Smith in federal court in Tennessee, alleging he unlawfully obtained her cellphone toll records during his investigation of Trump and the 2020 election. The suit, filed with the New Civil Liberties Alliance, claims Smith obtained a nondisclosure order without telling the judge the underlying matter. It came a day after Smith testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said there are "strong indications" Iran played a part in an incident over the weekend at RAF Fairford, a base used by U.S. forces, without giving details. Five men were arrested on suspicion of plotting a terrorist act near the base earlier in the week.

Russia told NATO in a diplomatic document it is prepared to use "the entire arsenal of forces and capabilities at its disposal, including nuclear weapons" if the alliance attempts to isolate Kaliningrad, the Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea between Poland and Lithuania. The document also raised the possibility of strikes on NATO members' "decision-making centers" at the outset of a conflict. NATO rejected the allegations, saying the alliance is defensive.

Britain's MI5 issued a public alert accusing a Chinese institute of operating as a front for espionage, saying it has been used to recruit academics to spy on UK research, including artificial intelligence and other technology fields. The government told UK academics to cut ties with the institute. The alert is part of a broader British effort to publicize the scale of Chinese espionage activity.

Switzerland's glaciers lost 5.5% of their ice volume in 2026, the second-biggest percentage drop on record, according to experts. The loss was driven by heat waves and low winter snowfall. Scientists said the melting threatens water supplies, ecosystems and communities across Europe and is no longer surprising given the pace of climate change.

A Paris court found six people smugglers guilty of involuntary manslaughter over the November 2021 sinking of a small boat in the English Channel that killed 31 migrants, the deadliest such disaster on the route. The men were linked to two smuggling networks. Some outlets reported 13 people were sentenced in the same trial, a figure not confirmed by other sources.