Thursday, October 15, 2026 · Evening Edition

Today

By StaffNews Desk

Good morning. The White House is preparing plans to use the weapon dubbed the "mother of all bombs" on Iran, according to sources — an escalation in a war the administration is already waging. The same reporting says former Army Chief of Staff Randy George warned, months before the Iran war, of a U.S. missile defense shortage. The arms economy that feeds these wars collects at home: Lockheed Martin showered Susan Collins with tens of thousands of dollars as its F-35 program hit turbulence.

At home, four people, three of them children, were killed in a shooting at an elementary school in Bend, Oregon, with the suspect also dead. Another classroom became a body count in a country whose rulers will arm any war abroad but not confront the slaughter of their own children.

On Ukraine, the rift between Trump and Zelenskyy is deepening as Kyiv grows less reliant on Washington and EU leaders are expected to press Zelenskyy to moderate his rhetoric against Trump. Four Republican senators voiced "grave concern" and demanded a Pentagon inspector general investigation into Ukraine's sudden loss of Starlink data it needs to intercept Russian drones, while an AEI analyst warns Putin sees an opening to intensify pressure on Ukraine.

The repression sharpens in step: Trump is pursuing a plan to deport Rep. Ilhan Omar, a sitting member of Congress; nine former FBI agents who investigated his classified-documents case have sued over their firings; and he has invoked executive privilege in the court fight over his control of the Kennedy Center. In Venezuela, opposition leader María Corina Machado broke with Trump over an oil deal, saying her return would come "sooner than you think."