The rural Oregon city of Bend was rocked by a mass shooting at an elementary school that killed three students and a teacher. Here’s what we know about the tragedy

• Shooter in fatal Bend, Oregon, school shooting was former student there

• Bystander who killed Oregon shooter identified as father of girls at elementary school

A 16-year-old gunman opened fire at the Silver Rail elementary school in Bend, Oregon, on Thursday, killing three children and a teacher.

The student victims were aged five, eight and 11. All of the victims were shot in the same classroom.

On Friday, the youngest victim was identified as Rhoam Summer, age five. His family said he was a fast runner and fearless climber who loved reading and his stuffed animals. “He never met a stuffie that he didn’t think needed to be rescued and cared for,” said his aunt, Swan Sheridan, who described him as “a little ball of energy from the moment he was born”. The names of the other student victims have not been released.

The teacher who was killed has been identified as 25-year-old Megan Lambert. In a statement read by officials on Friday, her family said she grew up in Bend, graduated from Boise State University and had a passion for sports, especially volleyball, and was a local coach. They said she was funny and opinionated, and “fought for the underdog” and “those with special needs”. “Meg loved those children,” the family said.

The 16-year-old shooter has been identified as Griffin J John II, a former student at the school. Griffin was killed at the scene. Police have yet to offer a motive.

Police said that an armed bystander pursued the suspect and shot him inside the school shortly before officers arrived. On Friday, that bystander was identified by his family as Kaylub Giamanco, a lifelong resident of Bend with two daughters at Silver Rail elementary. His family and others have called him a “hero”.

Two other victims, a seven-year-old student and a 54-year-old teacher, remain hospitalized. As of Friday afternoon, authorities said the student was receiving “life-saving care”, while the teacher was described as having “significant” but non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

The wounded teacher was identified by family as Becky Drury. Her mother-in-law, Yvonne Drury, said on Facebook that she had injuries to her left arm and right hand and was recovering from surgery.

Police arrived at the school at 1.02pm local time after receiving multiple reports of a shooting. One 911 caller reported an individual armed with a long gun firing upon their car. At a news conference on Friday, police said the shooter climbed over a fence and onto the school’s property, before shooting through a set of locked doors and forcing entry into the building. He fired as many as 15 shots from a 12-gauge shotgun before he was stopped, police said.

The attack has rocked the small city of Bend, which is home to 100,000 residents and is located on the Deschutes River, about 170 miles (275km) south-east of Portland. All public schools in the district, and the campuses of Oregon State University-Cascades and Central Oregon Community College, were closed on Friday.

Hundreds of people gathered at nearby Drake Park on Thursday night at a somber candlelight ceremony to remember the victims. Some attenders called on authorities to harden gun laws in Oregon, already some of the tightest in the nation.

Officials have praised the swift actions of law enforcement officers and of the community member who intervened. The Oregon governor, Tina Kotek, praised the intervention as heroic and extended her thoughts to the bystander. “Your actions carry a heavy emotional burden,” she said on Thursday evening.

The FBI is helping local authorities investigate the shooting, according to the agency’s director, Kash Patel.

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© Photograph: Joe Kline/AP

© Photograph: Joe Kline/AP

© Photograph: Joe Kline/AP

The remains of Edward Lelburian Jackson were first discovered in 2022, and an initial autopsy revealed he was killed decades ago

After four years, a piece of the haunting mystery uncovered in the waning waters of drought-stricken Lake Mead has been solved.

Since the remains of an unknown homicide victim were discovered stuffed inside a barrel in 2022, Las Vegas investigators have been searching not for his killer – but for his identity. At a press conference on Thursday, Clark county coroner Melanie Rouse shared his name publicly for the first time: Edward Lelburian Jackson.

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© Photograph: John Locher/AP

© Photograph: John Locher/AP

© Photograph: John Locher/AP

Katie Zacharia faces mounting questions over her legal credentials after admitting she did not pass the bar exam

Donald Trump’s new White House press secretary says it is “unknown” how much she will engage with the press, amid mounting questions over her legal credentials after admitting she did not pass the bar exam.

In a brief interview with the Guardian, Katie Zacharia detailed the whirlwind sprint to replace her predecessor Karoline Leavitt as the US president’s chief spokesperson.

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© Photograph: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

© Photograph: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

© Photograph: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

Two people critical in hospital as officials in Bend say 16-year-old suspect shot dead by bystander

• Oregon elementary school shooting: what we know so far

Schools in Bend, Oregon, will be closed on Friday after a 16-year-old shooter opened fire at an elementary school in the city on Thursday, killing three children and a teacher before he was shot dead by a community member.

The children killed at Silver Rail elementary school were aged five, eight and 11, officials said.

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© Photograph: Joe Kline/AP

© Photograph: Joe Kline/AP

© Photograph: Joe Kline/AP

Largest blaze the Henderson fire near San Diego as strong winds and severe heat could fuel rapid spread

Multiple wildfires ignited across California on Thursday as the state braced for more strong winds and high temperatures that could fuel rapid fire growth over the next several days.

The largest blaze, dubbed the Henderson fire, erupted in Camp Pendleton, a San Diego Marine Corps training base, and quickly consumed more than 1,000 acres. Evacuations have been issued and officials briefly closed part of the Interstate 5, a major highway in the region.

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© Photograph: David Swanson/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: David Swanson/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: David Swanson/AFP/Getty Images

El Niño will likely shift weather patterns to bring more rain, but much snow still isn’t forecast for the northern states

Winter in the United States looks like it will generally be wetter and warmer, but not necessarily snowier, according to the federal government’s seasonal outlook and other meteorologists’ forecasts. You can thank or blame El Niño.

El Niño is likely to shift weather patterns to bring more moisture, but with it higher temperatures. That should help erase persistent western drought, but it is unlikely to make northern snow-lovers happy, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) said on Thursday.

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© Photograph: Selcuk Acar/Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Selcuk Acar/Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Selcuk Acar/Anadolu/Getty Images

New Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Mykhailo Drapatyi is moving away from his predecessor’s legacy on several fronts, making the army more human-centric and tying procurement to its real needs, lawmaker Yehor Cherniev of the Parliamentary Defense Committee says, per NV.

Drapatyi took over as commander-in-chief on 21 July 2026, after protests over the sacking of Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov widened into demands for a military shake-up. His guiding principles, Cherniev says, differ sharply from those of his predecessor, Oleksandr Syrskyi.

The change is spelled out in a document Drapatyi published, “Principles of Leadership of the Commander-in-Chief and the Development of the Force in Wartime,” which sets out his intent and priorities. Its core is human-centricity.

“War demands resolve, but never recklessness. Every unjustified loss weakens the Armed Forces,” Drapatyi writes in the document, addressing commanders.

A command philosophy built around the soldier

The document sets out a single objective, eight priorities, 14 requirements for commanders and eight expectations of headquarters, with the protection of the country, its cities, villages and critical infrastructure at the top of the list. People, it says, are the most valuable combat capability.

Commanders and staff are required to give honest assessments and not let optimism, fear or personal ambition distort reality while preparing soldiers for combat, reducing unjustified risk, caring for the wounded, honoring the fallen and supporting their families.

Support does not end when service does: those who defended Ukraine must get proper rehabilitation, recognition and opportunities, the document says.

Buying what the front actually needs

The second shift Cherniev flags is in procurement. Under Drapatyi, the General Staff began shaping the army’s purchasing needs anew, adapting them to approaches introduced at the Defense Ministry under Fedorov, so orders follow real front-line demand rather than guesswork.

“The General Staff now works from real data, not just pointing a finger at the sky, but this product is needed in this quantity. That makes procurement fairly transparent and clear,” Cherniev says.

He frames both changes, on people and on purchasing, as the most important Drapatyi has brought to the armed forces.

Filming a drone strike and posting it online may be quietly teaching Russia’s drones to aim better. Russia is collecting footage of its Geran attack drones striking Ukraine, probably to check how its optical target-recognition and guidance algorithms perform in combat, presidential defense-technology adviser Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov says.

Russia has fitted its jet-powered Geran drones with machine vision that lets them recognize and track targets on their own in the final seconds of flight, a capability Ukraine’s electronic warfare cannot easily defeat. Now, Moscow is paying people inside Ukraine to film where those drones land, which Flash says is no coincidence after four years of not asking.

“Across many Telegram channels, the enemy is asking traitors to film videos of ‘Geran’ impacts and transmit information for a reward. For four years they didn’t ask, and suddenly it has become so crucial,” Beskrestnov notes.

The reason, he believes, lies in those optical guidance systems. Russian forces need impact footage to see how its algorithms are performing in real combat conditions, according to the expert.

The warning Flash is pressing on civilians

His takeaway for them is blunt: stop posting the videos of Russian assaults. He stresses the serious danger of publishing footage of impact sites and urges people not to film or share it.

“This serves as a signal to everyone: do not film and do not publish videos of ‘Shahed’ hits. You see how vital and necessary this is to Russia,” Beskrestnov adds.

Earlier, Ukrenergo board chairman Vitaly Zaichenko said that a Russian drone severed a unique power transmission tower at the Dnipro River crossing in Kyiv, and it cannot be restored. He added that the company was developing new technical solutions "on the fly, and very fast."

It would start the procedures for those solutions from 15 October. Russia’s use of drones able to sever metal towers is a new and serious challenge for Ukraine’s power engineers.

Ukraine has built an artillery-ammunition industry whose capacity now exceeds what the state budget can order. Yet its main problem is not production but the absence of a predictable state order, Ukrainian Armor chief executive Vladyslav Belbas said on Radio NV.

Private firms built those plants with their own money under constant Russian fire, but they still do not know how much the state will buy next year, or when it will sign the contracts that keep the lines running. The paradox is stark: Ukraine went from depending on Western shell deliveries at the start of the invasion to making more than its budget can buy, with room to export as much again.

“Now we supply ourselves with more than the budget can buy, and we can supply the same amount again for export. The building of an artillery-ammunition industry has happened. For certain types of ammunition, we can even speak of a closed cycle,” Belbas says.

He calls the shift a clear gain of recent years, with similar progress across many types of weapons.

Factories built on private money, waiting on the state

The producers are flying blind on demand. Private makers receive no state investment and are paid only for finished products, having built their plants themselves, yet they do not know in advance how much the state will buy or when it will sign contracts, he explains.

“All producers have been saying for years that we need a stable, clear order so that plants and workshops run without stopping. Private producers have not received a single coin of investment from the state. It is very hard to live and develop without forecasting,” Belbas says.

A procurement clock that runs out before the shells do

The calendar works against the factories. Contracting for next year has not begun because the budget is not yet set, and the procedures drag on: this year buying artillery ammunition took five months, leaving six for production, he notes.

For now, long-range ammunition is being actively contracted, and foreign deliveries are arriving, and he expects no supply problems by year’s end except for special munitions, including cluster rounds.

DoJ had demanded that LA county confirm citizenship of people on list in thumb drive, but officials refused

• Send us your questions about immigration and the midterms

The US Department of Justice sued California on Thursday, seeking a court order to prevent the state from tabulating certain ballots cast in the midterm elections.

The suit came two days after the department made a specious demand to the state. On Tuesday, the department sent election officials in Los Angeles county a thumb drive with a handwritten password purporting to contain the names of noncitizens registered to vote. The department asked officials to confirm the citizenship of anyone on the list and set aside ballots from those whose status could not be confirmed. It gave the state 48 hours – an extremely narrow window – to take action. It did not provide details on how it came up with the names on the list. In its lawsuit, filed in federal court in the central district of California, the justice department said it had provided the state with more than 20,000 names of likely noncitizens.

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© Photograph: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

© Photograph: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

© Photograph: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Last week, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced the Pentagon would livestream the execution of convicted killer Nidal Hasan. Today, Trump said the execution would move forward but that it wouldn’t be livestreamed. But the propaganda damage is already done. Experts who watch terrorist spaces online told 404 Media that Hasan is already turning up in memes, videos, and recruitment material for groups like Al Qaeda.

Hasan—a former US Army Major who had once attempted to contact Al Qaeda—killed 13 people and injured 32 others at Fort Hood in 2009. He was shot and captured at the scene and later sentenced to death. Hegseth’s plan to livestream Hasan’s execution and the furor around it brought Hasan and his crimes back into the spotlight 17 years later. Hasan has mostly been a forgotten figure in Islamist and extremist circles, but is now once again a fixture of their propaganda.

“It's already started,” Moustafa Ayad, research chair in global Islamism and counter-terrorism at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, told 404 Media. “We're already seeing edited videos in support of Nidal Hasan, and they're specifically based around how he's a martyr and that his legacy lives on.”

In one image Ayad shared with 404 Media, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) referred to Hasan as a “heroic mujahid brother” then quoted Osama Bin Laden. “The day America makes this decision, it will have made a decision to execute whoever among you falls captive.” 

According to Ayad, an Al Qaeda affiliated propaganda group made Hasan the feature of its newsletter last Friday. “So it's being viewed in that sense already in these ecosystems as he is a hero, and it's going to be used for recruitment and potentially galvanizing inspiration,” Ayad said. “We're talking about a guy who hasn't really been referenced since 2017 really or that much at all. So it has reignited conversations around his attack, how quote unquote glorious it was, and is being used as a means to to recruit people in some shape or form, and will continue to do so.

Ayad also described "rampage" edits of Hasan that are floating around extremists circles online that show footage of Hasan dancing over a number that represents how many people he killed. “You have fed the wolves,” he said. “They now have a thing they can latch on to.” In one TikTok edit viewed by 404 Media, a picture of Hasan with laser eyes throbbed to the beat of electronic music.

He added that he thinks the memes and videos are being made by younger people. “I don't think an established guy who remembers the Nadal Hassan attack is going to then go: ‘You know what makes sense? Putting out a dancing Nidal Hasan over his kill count.’ I don't think some 35-year-old dude is doing that,” he said. “You have a younger generation that is now attuned to what he did.”

Livestreaming the public execution would have given propagandists more to work with. Online nihilists, gore groups, and Islamists often use footage of death and violence to lure in young people. “Dead ideologues are continually being revered, lionized in ecosystems in support of  groups like Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, or any terrorist group,” Ayad said. “If you look at the saint ecosystems around accelerationism, it's a similar thing in which these individuals are the vanguard of jihad.”

Mass shooters and ideological killers that receive widespread media attention become objects of fascination online. They enter a cannon of sainted killers, totems that inspire others to commit the same acts. Some researchers have suggested news agencies should report a shooter’s crimes but refrain from naming and showing them, thus depriving them of notoriety and stemming the social contagion.

Hasan killed people almost twenty years ago and he was destined to fall out of memory until Hegseth attempted to make a spectacle of his death. “We’re already seeing it being incorporated into talking points, we’re past that,” Ayad said.

“He is still going to be labeled a martyr," Ayad added. “Will it be a public spectacle? Not anymore [...] but terror groups and their supporters took advantage of the news to highlight just how much of a contribution Nidal Hasan made to their respective movements.”

UK defence secretary trying to cool tensions and is arguing it is in America’s economic interests to support Kyiv

Wes Streeting urged the US to stand by Ukraine on his visit to the American capital and sought to cool tensions between the two countries in the wake of the Starlink row that is threatening to set back Kyiv’s war effort.

The British defence secretary, giving a speech before a meeting with his US counterpart, Pete Hegseth, argued that supporting Ukraine was in the long-term interests of Washington – and a business opportunity.

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© Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

© Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

© Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

Voting registration organizations accuse Texas officials of failing to ensure eligible voters can register properly

Texas election officials are struggling to process a massive backlog of nearly 600,000 voter registration applications after a major state computer system failure, just days before early voting is set to open on Monday and amid concerns about widespread voter suppression.

The disruption has raised serious concerns about the state’s voter registration system, with voting rights organizations accusing Texas officials of failing to ensure that eligible voters could properly register.

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© Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images

© Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images

© Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images

Prosecutors say Adan Manzano was victim of Danette Colbert’s operation targeting New Orleans tourists

A woman involved in a New Orleans criminal enterprise that targeted tourists and led to the death of a reporter has been resentenced to life.

On Wednesday, a Jefferson Parish judge resentenced 49-year old Danette Colbert to life in prison plus 75 years under Louisiana’s habitual offender law. In September, Colbert was sentenced to a total of 60 years in prison, 50 years for racketeering and a consecutive 10 years for negligent homicide in the death of Adan Manzano, a journalist for the Spanish-language news outlet Telemundo Kansas City.

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© Photograph: AP

© Photograph: AP

© Photograph: AP

Jane Does allege ex-congressman and two others coordinated ‘payments, drugs and travel’ for sexual acts

The Republican former congressman Matt Gaetz has been accused of participating in the sex trafficking of two young women in a civil lawsuit filed on Thursday in district court in Florida.

The allegations, which Gaetz denied in a statement to the Guardian, are the latest developments in a long-running sexual abuse scandal involving the politician who resigned from Congress in November 2024.

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© Photograph: Yuki Iwamura/AP

© Photograph: Yuki Iwamura/AP

© Photograph: Yuki Iwamura/AP

Election officers in Louisiana and Oklahoma receive a powdery substance, prompting evacuations

The FBI and the US Postal Inspection Service are investigating letters sent to state officials and election offices across the country containing an “unknown substance”.

Just weeks before November’s US midterm elections, election officers in Louisiana and Oklahoma received envelopes containing a powdery substance, leading to evacuations. A similar package containing white powder was also sent to the Ohio secretary of state, but the US Postal Service intercepted the package.

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© Photograph: Jenny Kane/AP

© Photograph: Jenny Kane/AP

© Photograph: Jenny Kane/AP

We’d like to hear about whether you feel like the US is in a recession and what you think signals such a downturn

Nearly two-thirds of Americans think the US is experiencing a recession, according to a new Harris Poll conducted for the Guardian. By the typical definition of a recession – when a country’s economic growth is in the negative for two consecutive quarters – the US is not experiencing one. Still, Americans are facing higher prices and a stagnant job market, which for many feels like a downturn.

We want to hear from Americans: do you feel like the US is experiencing a recession? What is your so-called personal “recession indicator”, or a signal in your everyday life that points to an incoming economic slump? It could be seen in your job or at your local grocery store, something you notice at your children’s school or out in your community. Tell us about it below.

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© Photograph: Nam Y Huh/AP

© Photograph: Nam Y Huh/AP

© Photograph: Nam Y Huh/AP

Consulting giant Accenture has told many employees that the company will now only spend $29 a month per person on Claude. Employees subject to the cap, some of whom had been spending as much as $1,000 monthly, are scrambling to find ways to make sure they can keep spending as much as they already are.

The news is a snapshot of what continues to play out across all sorts of industries: companies have spent heavily on AI tools, and are now discovering that many users are burning or “chewing” through AI tokens at a rapid clip. In response, many companies have curbed their employees’ AI use. There is a special irony to Accenture doing much of the same, when it is a company that has encouraged its clients to invest heavily into AI.

Elon Musk has spent $158m in a month to back Republicans in midterm races – with his efforts mostly focused on Texas

Tens of millions of dollars are pouring into Texas as Democrats stage an audacious bid to win a US Senate seat in the Republican stronghold.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, is among those wading into the closely watched race as November’s midterm elections approach.

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© Composite: Reuters, CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images

© Composite: Reuters, CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images

© Composite: Reuters, CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images

Russia has found a way to cut Ukraine’s power lines that no repair crew can undo. A unique power transmission tower that a Russian drone cut down at the Dnipro River crossing in Kyiv cannot be restored,  Ukrenergo board chairman Vitaliy Zaichenko says, as the grid operator rushes to build alternative ways to keep electricity flowing, Interfax reports.

Russia has spent the war trying to switch off Ukraine’s lights. Now, it is widening the campaign before winter with a new tactic: drones that slice through the steel towers carrying high-voltage lines.

“Everyone has seen the video showing the destruction of one of the unique power transmission towers at the crossing over the Dnipro in Kyiv. It was severed, and it is impossible to restore it,” Zaichenko continues.

He adds that now the company is developing new technical solutions "on the fly, and very fast." It will start the procedures for those solutions from 15 October, he notes. Russia’s use of drones able to sever metal towers is a new and serious challenge for Ukraine’s power engineers.

Zaichenko did not say when the tower was hit. On 30 September, Russia first used a jet-powered drone carrying a 40-kilogram charge built to cut steel towers, and that evening an eyewitness filmed one striking a power line tower in Kyiv, which cut electricity in parts of three districts, Informator reported.

When the spare parts are as scarce as the targets are plentiful

Rebuilding is colliding with a global shortage. Ukrenergo faces serious difficulties getting backup equipment, Zaichenko explains, because the whole world’s energy system is expanding at once and everyone needs the same hardware.

“There is a real problem with equipment. The global power system is expanding, and everyone needs energy equipment. There is a tough queue,” Zaichenko says.

Ukraine has faced such challenges since August 2026, when Russia began launching its jet-powered drones. Kyiv still has no effective solution against them and relies more on a mix of air defenses, such as automated turrets and interceptor drones.

Kyiv has also engaged over 100 private air defense system brigades to protect its enterprises in the ranks of the Ukrainian Air Forces.

Leader of CREC church – whose pastors have advocated death penalty – says he ‘prefers public executions to private’

Donald Trump announced on Thursday he was cancelling Pete Hegseth’s recently announced plans to livestream a military execution – because “many very good and well-meaning people would rather not watch him die”. But there were some fans of Hegseth’s now-scotched idea: the rightwing religious figures who have long backed his career.

Hegseth announced last week that the US public would be able to see the execution of Nidal Hasan, which is set for 3 December at Fort Hood, Texas. Hasan, a former army major and psychiatrist, killed 13 people and wounded 32 at Fort Hood in 2009. A military court sentenced him to death in August 2013.

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© Photograph: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

© Photograph: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

© Photograph: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

Join our final live Q&A before the midterm elections, on 22 October at noon ET on the Guardian US site

Since Donald Trump started his second term in January 2025, immigration enforcement has remained a major issue for US voters, with arrests reaching record highs, operations becoming deadly and immigration raids hitting politicians’ homes. Our reporting has documented the experiences of those directly affected by the harsh conditions in detention centers and resistance to ICE agents on the ground.

Immigration will be a defining issue in the final weeks of campaigning for the 2026 US midterm elections.

The makeup of the Democratic party, plus key races to watch

Who are the groups financially backing the candidates in the midterms?

Will the Iran war cost Trump in the US midterm elections? Your questions answered

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© Illustration: Teresa Lo/Guardian Design

© Illustration: Teresa Lo/Guardian Design

© Illustration: Teresa Lo/Guardian Design

Hungary stopped a Ukrainian Oschadbank armored convoy in 2026, held its couriers, and kept $82 million in cash and gold. The European Court of Human Rights has registered six applications from the bank's couriers, who say Hungarian police unlawfully detained and tortured them.

In March, Hungarian forces stopped two bank vehicles carrying cash and bank metals from Austria to Ukraine, with seven employees transporting $40 million, 35 million euros, and nine kilograms of gold. It happened just before Hungary’s parliamentary elections, in which then-prime minister Viktor Orban had built his campaign around a sweeping anti-Ukraine message, and lost.

Six of the employees filed with the court on 5 July 2026, and the court’s secretariat has now confirmed their registration and assigned each an official number, according to the bank. It expects a seventh courier’s application, alleging the same violations, to be registered too.

“The fact that the ECHR has accepted the complaint and opened proceedings indicates that there are reasonable legal grounds for the case, that it has legal merit, and that the court intends to examine it on its merits,” Oschadbank says.

The rights the couriers say Hungary broke

The complaints rest on two articles of the European Convention on Human Rights. Article 3 bans torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, while Article 5 guarantees the right to liberty and protects people from arbitrary detention, the bank notes.

During the detention, one courier, a diabetic former Security Service officer, was forcibly injected with an unknown substance, which his Hungarian lawyer confirmed he received despite his objections. He then suffered a hypertensive crisis, lost consciousness and was hospitalized, and Oschadbank confirmed that medical care came only after he passed out, The Guardian reported.

Oschadbank calls the registration an important step in defending its staff. Board chairman Yury Katsion said the bank will continue to protect the couriers’ interests and its own reputation, expects a legal assessment of the Hungarian forces’ actions and is grateful to partners for their support.

Why registration is a start, not a verdict

The cases are only at an early stage. Registration does not mean the court has found a violation or ruled the complaints admissible, as it must separately weigh the procedural conditions and the circumstances the applicants describe, Oschadbank stresses.

The incident itself, however, is documented: Hungary returned the seven couriers the next day but held the cash and gold for months, releasing the vehicles on 12 March and the money and gold by May.

Maine senator refutes claim from ex-Navatek CEO that he funded Collins’s Super Pac in exchange for naval contracts

• US politics live – latest updates

Susan Collins, the US senator of Maine, has dismissed allegations that she traded federal contracts for campaign cash as “completely false” after it emerged the FBI examined the claims.

Asked by a reporter about an ethics complaint filed last week by a Maine attorney, the Republican – currently campaigning to retain her seat ahead of November’s US midterm elections – said the allegations were recycled from 2020 and had been rejected by the Department of Justice, the FBI and the Federal Election Commission.

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© Photograph: Kylie Cooper/Reuters

© Photograph: Kylie Cooper/Reuters

© Photograph: Kylie Cooper/Reuters

Michael Desronvil tells Fox News he never had reasonable doubt Clancy was guilty but didn’t back up his claims

Michael Desronvil, the sole holdout juror in the Lindsay Clancy trial has spoken in his first interview since a mistrial was declared.

Desronvil spoke of “tense deliberations” in the jury room, and about how his strong Christian faith helped prepare him for those discussions.

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© Photograph: Greg Derr/Reuters

© Photograph: Greg Derr/Reuters

© Photograph: Greg Derr/Reuters

Ukraine’s operation to strike Russian targets at operational and strategic depth is continuing, Unmanned Systems Forces Commander Robert “Madiar” Brovdi said. He listed data centers, military and strategic sites, and energy hubs “deep in the swamps,” his usual name for Russia.

The fresh statement lands amid fears that a Starlink disruption could break front-line operations.

Overnight into 14 October, the 7th Air Assault Corps said the faster StarShield military package, an advanced version of Starlink that its units depend on, had been throttled, halting a series of missions. Against that backdrop, Brovdi says his branch’s strikes are not falling.

“A serious brawl is underway in conditions of significantly worse weather, drizzle, fog, and precipitation,” Brovdi says, underscoring that the pace held through conditions that usually ground drones.

Over the first two weeks of October, the drone branch verified 7,306 Russian soldiers killed or wounded, up 59.45% on the same period in August and 24.65% in September, he writes on his Telegram page, calling the trend the opposite of de-escalation.

Where the killing climbs fastest, and who is doing it

One sector stands out above the rest. On the Dobropillia-Pokrovsk axis, in the zone of the Azov group, the branch’s drones accounted for 3,221 Russian losses in the first two weeks of October, a 102% jump on August and 42.5 percent on September, Brovdi reports.

The figures cover only the drone branch and are verified in the military’s Delta, the video fixation system, he stresses, so the full count of Russian losses across all Ukrainian forces can be much higher.

The scale of a campaign that will not slow down

The numbers behind the claim are large. Over the first two weeks of October, the branch flew 124,500 combat missions, strike and reconnaissance, and hit 32,172 Russian targets, of which manpower was 22.7%, by his count.

That works out to about 2,298 Russian targets a day, he adds, the kind of tempo that makes any talk of a lull on the front hard to square with what his drones are recording. The deep-strike half of that campaign has grown 1,150% over 2026, reaching military-industrial and energy sites far inside Russia, according to Euromaidan Press.

Soldier who killed 13 people in 2009 will still be executed, but president said ‘people would rather not watch him die’

Donald Trump has shelved a widely condemned plan to livestream the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, who was convicted of killing 13 people at a military base at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009.

In a social media post on Thursday, Trump argued that broadcasting such an execution “might have been a strong deterrent for the World to witness how America deals with Terrorists and SCUM like Hasan” but said that “many very good and well meaning people would rather not watch him die, through streaming, or through any other visual device”.

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© Photograph: Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters

© Photograph: Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters

© Photograph: Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters

Ukraine’s six-wheeled Frodo ground robot fired on targets during a demonstration in Kharkiv Oblast for the Pomsta (Revenge) Border Guard Brigade, a border guard detachment posted on Facebook. Frodo made its public debut only on 30 September.

Ukraine had contracted more than 22,000 ground robots for 2026 by July, mostly logistics carriers, with combat models the smallest group, the Defense Ministry said. Frodo’s first reported mission was an evacuation. The demo shows its armed version to a fighting brigade, the kind of robot Ukraine has ordered least.

What the armed version carries

The platform completed its tasks at a training ground in near-combat conditions, said the 3rd Border Guard Detachment named after Hero of Ukraine Colonel Yevhenii Pikus. The Buria turret mounted on Frodo can fire either a Mk 19 automatic grenade launcher or a Browning M2 heavy machine gun. It engaged targets at up to 1.3 km (0.8 mile), the detachment said.

The 47-kg (104-lb) module has a ballistic calculator, stores up to 256 targets, aims in three seconds, and has a stated autonomous run time of up to 48 hours, the post said. Frodo is rated for up to 150 km (93 miles) on paved roads and 75–80 km (47–50 miles) over rough terrain, the post added. A Frontline Robotics Zoom reconnaissance drone flew reconnaissance during the test.

The developer, Frontline Robotics, describes its core philosophy as arriving fast, doing the job, and leaving very fast—hit and run, the detachment’s post said. Familiarizing the brigade’s soldiers with such systems aims first and foremost to preserve personnel’s lives and health, the detachment said.

A robot first reported as a medevac

Frontline Robotics told Militarnyi at the unveiling that Frodo had passed Defense Ministry codification and was built for logistics, evacuation, and strike missions. The robot reaches 40 km/h (25 mph) and carries up to 200 kg (441 lb) of payload, or 400 kg (882 lb) at most, the company said. A single soldier can swap its batteries.

The 92nd Assault Brigade used an early test unit to evacuate a wounded soldier, Frontline Robotics told Militarnyi. An operator, callsign Tango, named the robot’s speed and its ability to handle complex maneuvers as its main advantages, Militarnyi reported.

Ukrainian and Japanese officials discussed establishing backup bridge crossings in the event of Russian strikes, preparing municipal infrastructure for winter, and Japan's continued assistance with Ukraine's recovery, Ukraine's Minister for Restoration, Infrastructure and Transport, Mykola Kalashnyk, reported on 14 October.

Russia is targeting Kyiv's bridges to paralyze the city and break civilian morale, defense analyst Hamish de Bretton-Gordon wrote in The Telegraph. On 1 and 2 October, Russia attacked Kyiv's Southern Bridge, then struck the Northern Bridge on 3 and 4 October. Ukraine is now working with international partners to establish backup bridge crossings that could maintain connectivity even if major routes are damaged.

The discussions took place during a meeting between Minister Kalashnyk, Japan's Ambassador to Ukraine Yo Osumi, and Osamu Hattori, head of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) office in Ukraine, according to the statement.

Backup crossings could prevent logistical disruptions if major bridges are damaged

Kyiv's Southern Bridge, for example, plays a critical role in logistics because freight traffic uses it, transport planning expert Dmytro Bespalov noted in an article for Ukrainska Pravda. At the same time, installing additional metal structures to reinforce bridges could be dangerous given their technical condition and existing load levels, he said.

One potential solution is to establish backup bridge crossings.

Ukraine and JICA have agreed to continue working together on engineering solutions for setting up these crossings. Japan has already delivered 720 meters of prefabricated bridge structures to Ukraine, which are expected to be used to create alternative routes if Russia's attacks damage major bridges, Kalashnyk said.

The initiative is intended to help maintain transportation links, ensure the delivery of critical supplies, and preserve evacuation routes for civilians.

Ukraine prepares water utilities and boiler plants for winter amid the threat of Russian infrastructure strikes

During the meeting, Ukraine and JICA discussed equipping water utilities with backup power supplies, addressing the need for modular boiler plants, and obtaining equipment to ensure uninterrupted heating and water services. Ukraine has already submitted lists of the necessary equipment to JICA for consideration as part of a new emergency assistance project, Kalashnyk said.

An intercepted document outlining an alleged Russian plan for strikes against Ukraine this winter reportedly describes attacks on 60 critical infrastructure facilities using up to 1,000 missiles, drones, and aerial bombs. Potential targets include electrical substations, hydroelectric power plants, thermal power plants, boiler facilities, and infrastructure related to water supply and wastewater management.

The document also describes potential strikes on facilities in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, and several other cities. Such attacks could disrupt electricity, heating, water supply, and wastewater services.

Move comes as Senator Elizabeth Warren condemns Barclays response to questions over ex-boss’s ties to sex offender

US lawmakers have unveiled a new bill to hold Wall Street’s “Epstein-connected” bosses to account for helping finance the late sex offender’s crimes.

It came as top Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren condemned the UK bank Barclays for “dodging responsibility” over its failure to vet former boss Jes Staley and his ties to the once well-connected billionaire.

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© Photograph: Uma Sanghvi/AP

© Photograph: Uma Sanghvi/AP

© Photograph: Uma Sanghvi/AP

OpenAI lets anyone inject ads into ChatGPT users’ sessions, targeting specific groups of people based on their email address, phone number, or a unique identifier on their phone, according to 404 Media’s own tests of ChatGPT’s advertising ecosystem.

While the ad targeting available in ChatGPT is somewhat standard practice across the advertising industry, the chatbot’s one billion monthly active users may not understand they, in some cases, are being specifically targeted because of their personal data the advertiser has uploaded to OpenAI. ChatGPT’s ad targeting is also novel in that it is also based on the prompts users enter into the chatbot, prompts that users may assume are private but which, as 404 Media has previously shown, may be reviewed by humans. Or in this case, used for ad targeting purposes.

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) detained two men suspected of scouting targets for Russian strikes on Sloviansk and Dnipro, the agency reported on 14 October. Catching both early let it secure Ukrainian reserve command posts and the gas stations the alleged agents had been hunting, the agency added.

Sloviansk anchors the northern end of the Fortress Belt, the chain of fortified cities that has held Ukraine’s defense of Donetsk Oblast since 2014. Russia is pushing to seize them, and its aircraft bombed a residential area of Sloviansk on 11 October. Where Ukrainian convoys stop and troops gather is exactly what Russian handlers allegedly asked these suspects to supply.

A gas station worker suspected of filming convoys

The first suspect worked at a gas station complex in Sloviansk, Donetsk Oblast. Russian intelligence allegedly reached him through a former classmate who left for Russia after the full-scale invasion and now works for its special services, the SBU said. He then allegedly used his phone to secretly film Ukrainian army convoys at or near gas stations. He was allegedly supposed to send the photos and videos to Russia to help it prepare a targeted strike. He also allegedly drove his own car around other gas stations and bridges that the Defense Forces use for logistics.

Spotted through Telegram comments

The second suspect, a former Pokrovsk resident, moved to Dnipro in 2024 and settled in a dormitory. Russian intelligence noticed him through pro-Kremlin comments he posted in Telegram chats, investigators say. A female handler in Russia allegedly tasked him with guiding missile and drone attacks on places in the city where Ukrainian troops and equipment were concentrated. He allegedly scouted on foot or took public transport to reach outlying districts.

Officers seized computers and smartphones containing evidence of the men’s alleged work for Russia. Both are suspected of treason under martial law and of unauthorized dissemination of information on Ukrainian troop movements or deployment, under Articles 111(2) and 114-2(2) of the Criminal Code. They remain in custody without bail and face up to life imprisonment with confiscation of property. The SBU’s office for Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts ran the operation under the Donetsk Oblast Prosecutor’s Office.

Discovery of grenades prompted a neighborhood lockdown and a visit from the Austin police department’s bomb squad

A buyer at a Texas estate sale discovered several second world war-era grenades in a box of newly bought items, prompting a neighbourhood lockdown and a visit from the Austin police department’s bomb squad.

The grenades, which were described as “live and active” in a social media post by the Austin police association, were removed and disarmed.

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© Photograph: Austin Police Association

© Photograph: Austin Police Association

© Photograph: Austin Police Association

Ukrainian drones hit Russia’s largest data center on Wednesday. This was Ukraine’s fourth strike on Russian data centers in the past week and confirmation of a new reality of war: data centers are valuable enemy assets and they will be targeted.

In 2006, British economist Clive Humby declared “data is the new oil,” and big tech adopted the metaphor. Twenty years later, a dark side of the truism has been revealed. If the places where oil is refined are valuable targets in a war then so, too, are the places where data is refined. We’ve seen this not just in the Russia-Ukraine war, but also with Iran hitting Amazon Web Services data centers in Dubai in retaliation for America’s strikes on the country. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed strikes on Russian data centers and oil refineries in a post on X and called them a “symmetrical response" to Russian aggression. Here we have oil and data together again, not as a metaphor in an economics lecture, but in the pronouncement of a world leader defending his country. conducting a war.

Three of Ukraine’s strikes hit data centers that belonged to Yandex, Russia’s Google-equivalent, and damaged the company’s supercomputers that housed some of its AI models. The latest attack hit a data center operated by Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank. It’s too early to tell what the effects of the strike on the Sberbank data center will be, but the three strikes on Yandex have disrupted internet and communications across Russia.

An online rumor said that the strikes on Yandex had the effect of taking down Russian bot farms, but this wasn’t true. The effects of the strikes on the civilian population were much more severe. Yandex is ubiquitous in Russia — it has its own app store, payment services, dating services, taxi and bus apps, and email services. The company operates six data centers in Russia and the strikes knocked two of them offline completely. People in Russia have lost access to their email, some of their data is seemingly gone, and taxi and bus apps only work intermittently.

ChrisO_wiki, an anonymous researcher who translates Russian social media posts for the western web, chronicled how the Yandex outages are hitting everyday Russians. “A taxi driver from Yekaterinburg says that after the service disruptions, he can no longer view his order history, and the status of trips is updated with a delay,” ChrisO_wiki said in a post on X and Bluesky. 

“The loss of Yandex's cloud services is also having severe impacts on Russian commercial logistics. Those who work with electronic document management are unable to register incoming goods, severely affecting manufacturers and distributors,” they said in another post.

These attacks are just the latest in a long line of strikes on data centers this year. Russia has been targeting Ukrainian data centers for months and Iran hit AWS data centers in Dubai in March, knocking out digital infrastructure in the Middle East.

Klaudia Klonowska, a researcher who studies the effects of emerging technologies on international law, told 404 Media that attacks on data centers are so new that international law around them is still developing. “You have very limited situations in which they would actually qualify as lawful targets when they're used by the military, and even then, it's very difficult for the attackers to know whether that's happening or not,” Klonowska said.

If the data centers are purely processing military data, then they could be legitimate targets, according to Klonowska. But many, if not most, data centers are dual-use, meaning they house both civilian and military data. In many cases, disrupting daily life seems to be part of the point.

When Russia struck data centers in Ukraine in September, state-backed news agencies claimed it hosted data for Palantir that supported Ukrainian intelligence efforts and was a lawful target. Ukraine denied the allegation. “So you see how difficult, because of the nature of these centers, it's really to pinpoint what is happening with them and who is using them and for what means,” Klonowska said. “Sometimes [Ukraine] mentions that these data centers contribute to Moscow's revenues that then fuel the war machine. But that's not enough to make them lawful targets. Retaliation is not enough under law.”

Klonowska noted that it is civilians who suffer most, not the military, when data centers go offline. “There are questions about proportionality given how widespread the attacks are,” she said. “A lack of internet access for very prolonged periods affects everything. It's all of the civilian services that are being disrupted, which you can imagine also includes things like hospitals, traffic, judicial services, etc. etc.” It’s worth noting that Russia has repeatedly attacked civilian targets in Ukraine, including apartment buildings, public transportation, and hospitals.

According to Klonowska, international and humanitarian law needs to catch up with the issue and that scholars like herself are only just starting to understand the ramifications. “I think there's also another bigger question behind all of this,” she said. “Why have we gotten to the point where we have permitted militaries of various states to use civilian commercial data centers for their military purposes? By potentially using them and relying on them, they have opened them up to the possibility of becoming military targets.”

Disentangling civilian and military data probably won’t take data centers off the target list, but it will make international law more clear on which buildings are legitimate targets. It may also change how data centers processing military data are built. 

“France has recently announced that they have unveiled their underground data center on the outskirts of Paris that will be exclusively for military use,” Klonowska said. “Just as we expect them not to use schools or hospitals or other civilian residential areas to host weapons or other military equipment, we would, I think, increasingly need to mention this in the case of data centers.”

The idea that a data center might be a military target is not lost on the American communities facing construction of them in their backyards. America’s nuclear weapons scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratories (LANL) have partnered with the University of Michigan in an attempt to build a data center in Ypsilanti Township, Michigan. The people and government of the Township aren’t thrilled about it for a number of reasons and the city attorney has said that the data center would be a “high value target” in wars of the future. Los Alamos pushed back on this in a letter to the community in September, around the same time Russia was striking data centers in Ukraine. LANL accused the township attorney of creating “that terminology without basis. It should not be interpreted as evidence of a known, specific, or imminent threat to the facility or the surrounding community,” the letter said. 

“Like other major research facilities, the center would employ appropriate security measures, including controlled access, cameras, and on-site security personnel,” it said. “Los Alamos and U-M would coordinate with local, state, and federal partners on matters related to safety and security.”

It’s easy to see where the people of Ypsilanti Township are coming from. When Ukraine struck three Yandex data centers in Russia over the weekend, its drones slipped past Russia’s air defenses. The idea that a town next to a data center, especially one with ties to America’s nuclear weapons programs, could sustain damage if the data center was ever attacked isn’t unfounded. The data centers smoldering in the world’s war zones proved that the township’s fears aren’t theoretical.

Two tankers caught fire within about 12 hours off Sulina, Romania’s port at the mouth of the Danube, Romanian authorities reported. The crew of one said a drone hit it inside Romania’s territorial waters, while Bucharest says it is still checking whether drones were involved. Bulgaria, where drones sank ships in its economic zone this month, says it lacks proof that Russia launched them.

For months, Russia has struck civilian ships on the sea route that carries most of Ukraine’s farm exports, while its drones have repeatedly crossed into Moldova and Romania during attacks on Ukraine. As long as Bucharest and Sofia wait for drone wreckage before naming anyone, Russia, the party Bulgaria’s own prime minister says the logic points to, pays no price for extending its war on Ukraine’s trade routes into NATO members’ waters.

Seven sailors missing after the second fire

The San Marino-flagged chemical tanker Wine Trader reported a fire in its superstructure around 07:00 on 15 October while anchored in Romanian territorial waters about 13 nautical miles southeast of Sulina, Romania’s Naval Authority said. By midday, five of its 12 crew had been recovered and seven were still missing.

Hours earlier, at 01:34, a drone entered Romanian airspace over the country’s waters southeast of Sulina for about a minute before vanishing from radar, the Defense Ministry said. Authorities have not named a cause for the fire, though unnamed sources

Tech billionaire Elon Musk wrote on X on 15 October: “And so the slaughter continues … Time for Zelensky to go.” Four days earlier, he had posted that Zelenskyy had gone too far, after US President Donald Trump said it was time for Ukraine to get a new president. Asked by Morgan on 14 October whether he would resign, Zelenskyy said he would not: “It’s my responsibility.”

Musk’s post comes as Washington squeezes Kyiv instead of Moscow: Ukraine’s military satellite links slowed, US missile warnings went missing, and the US threatened to cut intelligence unless Kyiv stops hitting Russian refineries.

Land and elections

Zelenskyy said elections could not be held under constant Russian attack: “From the point of security, you can’t do elections.”

Of any future president, he said: “I’m sure the new man or woman will defend our country.” He also reminded Trump that Crimea and parts of Donbas were already occupied when he took office, under another president, long before the full-scale invasion.

“I’m a realist, and I understand that people are more important than one kilometer or two kilometers. It’s not about kilometers. It’s about land and homes,” he told Morgan.

Zelenskyy has said Ukraine is ready for elections if a full 60-day ceasefire is in place. Numerous sources told The Atlantic that Trump sees Zelenskyy as the main obstacle to a peace deal and related business deals with Russia. One Trump adviser said he is also an obstacle to Trump’s hopes for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Starlink

Ukrainian forces reported restrictions on Starshield, the SpaceX satellite system they use for battlefield communications and drone operations, and Zelenskyy warned the decision would cost lives. On 14 October, Musk said Starshield is owned and controlled by the US government, which sets its limits, and that commercial Starlink cannot be used for offensive military action. Zelenskyy told the FT he did not know whether the decision was SpaceX’s or the US government’s, adding: “I think it’s about SpaceX.” A senior US official told Axios the Trump administration had nothing to do with the restrictions.

Intelligence and refineries

On two consecutive nights, air raid alerts in Kyiv sounded only after Russian ballistic missiles were already approaching or striking the capital. Zelenskyy said Ukraine received no warning from partners of the launches on 12 and 13 October, which hit civilian infrastructure and a major power plant. A Ukrainian official told CNN the loss of intelligence “will give Russians a real leverage on a frontline.” A European official questioned Washington’s explanation that weather caused the gaps in missile warnings. Trump denied halting intelligence sharing.

Washington had warned it could suspend intelligence sharing if Ukraine kept striking Russian refineries, Axios reported. A US official disputed that any explicit threat was made. Sources told CNN the US had also threatened to halt European purchases of US weapons for Ukraine. Zelenskyy told the FT the warning came through military channels.

To lower energy costs before next month’s midterm elections, Trump has pressed Kyiv to stop refinery strikes, CNN reported. Zelenskyy said he felt betrayed after Trump announced a diesel supply deal with Russia. On 14 October in London, he told the FT that Ukraine would resume strikes on Russian oil refineries.

Authorities say suspect, 19, was allegedly planning a mass shooting and had shared a white supremacist manifesto

A man arrested in a Chicago suburb had shared a ⁠document expressing white supremacist views and outlined an alleged plan to carry out a mass shooting, potentially targeting a Hindu place of worship, police ⁠said on Wednesday.

Alexandros Paporakis, 19, was ​arrested on Sunday after an individual reported receiving concerning electronic communications from him, Palatine police said. It was not immediately clear if he had ⁠legal representation.

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© Photograph: Social Media

© Photograph: Social Media

© Photograph: Social Media

Voters’ opposition to the state of Trump’s economy is well established – despite his desperate attempts to deflect

• Tell us: what is your personal ‘recession indicator’?

It’s indisputable that the political polarization of our time has reduced (and confused) the influence of economic conditions on US elections.

In September of 2024, in the waning weeks of the Joe Biden presidency, 65% of Republicans believed the US economy was getting worse. About six months later, as Donald Trump launched a trade war on the rest of the world with his “liberation day” tariffs, the share of Republican pessimists had dropped to 33%.

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© Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

© Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

© Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

President Zelenskyy accused Donald Trump of taking Russia’s side after access to the vital system was throttled. Plus, a happy ending for a dog that was missing for a month

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Good morning. Ukraine’s president has said he feels “betrayed” by Donald Trump over a throttling of Starlink access. Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused the US president of picking the other side after more than four years of war, risking a breakdown in US-Ukraine relations.

Ukraine’s military reported that the communications system, produced by Elon Musk’s SpaceX but managed by the US government, was no longer working on terminals moving at speeds greater than 100mph. That effectively rendered most of the drones used by Ukraine to strike behind the frontlines inoperable and affected the country’s best air defence system to stop Russian jet-powered attack drones bombing Kyiv.

What is the likely impact of the loss of Starlink? The Ukrainian human rights activist Oleksandra Matviichuk said: “Without that protection, Russian drones will strike residential buildings, hospitals and schools like targets in a shooting gallery.” However, Starlink is not required for long-range Ukrainian missions that target Russian oil refineries, which Trump has been concerned about because of their impact on world energy prices.

How is Israel blocking Trump’s plans for Gaza? Israel is refusing to allow a key project for Donald Trump’s Board of Peace to proceed. In early August, the board issued its first construction contract, for a military outpost to host 150 international troops as a vanguard of an international stabilization force. Two months later, Israel has still not allowed the contract to move forward.

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© Photograph: Jordan Pettitt/PA

© Photograph: Jordan Pettitt/PA

© Photograph: Jordan Pettitt/PA

Russia hit central Ukraine’s Kirovohrad Oblast with its largest attack since the full-scale invasion, killing residents of the oblast capital, Kropyvnytskyi, the oblast’s head said. Russian strikes hit more than a dozen oblasts, and Ukraine’s president said Moscow escalated deliberately after sanctions relief.

Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine continues on the front line and behind it, where its drones, missiles, and glide bombs strike towns daily. Kyiv is drafting winter crisis plans as Russia targets the biggest cities, and logistics is hit too: Russia struck one retailer’s warehouse hub 10 times in a day.

Three dead in Kropyvnytskyi

Oblast head Andrii Raikovych counted almost 360 Russian drones over Kirovohrad Oblast and hits on 26 locations, mostly in Kropyvnytskyi. In his words, “the enemy deliberately struck critical infrastructure, transport enterprises, logistics facilities, and residential buildings.” In a post after midnight, he reported a third death and six injured, five of them in hospital.

Air-raid alerts around the city ran from 15:20 on 14 October to 05:33, and Suspilne correspondents heard more than 20 explosions in Kropyvnytskyi, the public broadcaster reported. The national emergency service counted 25 struck locations, and rescuers were still putting out fires in the morning, the service’s spokesperson in the oblast said.

A wave Kyiv ties to sanctions relief

Nationwide, Russia launched 580 drones and two Kh-59 guided missiles from 18:00 on 14 October, and air defenses downed or suppressed 536 drones by 08:00, the Air Force reported. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia killed three people in Kropyvnytskyi and three in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, where oblast head Oleksandr Hanzha reported two dead.

Zelenskyy counted more than 850 Iranian-designed Shahed attack drones between the start of 14 October and 09:00 the next day, “precisely at the time of an artificial speed limitation for our defensive capabilities.” Overnight into 14 October, SpaceX capped speeds on its military Starshield satellite service, disrupting Ukrainian missions. He added that Russia escalated “deliberately, having received a relaxation of sanctions and seeing attempts to pressure Ukraine.” Last week, Washington cleared Russian diesel trade after a call between US President Donald Trump and Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin.

Strikes from Kyiv to Odesa Oblast

In Kyiv, a drone fell into a residential yard, Mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote, later putting the injured at six. Drones hit two industrial enterprises in Poltava Oblast, its head Vitalii Diakivnych wrote, and a later strike on Poltava injured three people, rescuers said in a preliminary count. Ukraine’s state gas company Naftogaz said a drone set one of its gas production facilities in the oblast on fire, halting its work.

Russian guided aerial bombs injured two women and a man in Izium, Kharkiv Oblast, on 15 October, according to preliminary data from oblast head Oleh Syniehubov, who had counted nine injured in the oblast over the previous day. Over that day, Russian attacks killed three people in Donetsk Oblast, the oblast police said, and one in Kherson Oblast, where oblast head Oleksandr Prokudin reported five more injured. In Kherson city, a drone injured a man, the oblast administration said. In Sumy Oblast, a drone hit a house and left two people in acute stress, its administration said.

In Odesa Oblast, strikes damaged two apartment blocks, a company, and a bank office without casualties, oblast head Oleh Kiper said. Later, a jet-powered Shahed hit a store in the oblast, Zelenskyy wrote, and Kiper counted four injured in a preliminary tally. Drones also hit an enterprise in Ternopil Oblast, and five people sought medical help, rescuers said, while drones damaged two homes in Rivne, oblast head Oleksandr Koval said.

Ukrainian officials contacted the White House, CIA, and Pentagon after the restrictions, which Ukraine says affected both Starlink and Starshield, Axios reported on 14 October. A senior US official told Axios the Trump administration had nothing to do with the restrictions. On the same day, Elon Musk said on X that Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government, and that any speed or usage limits are decided by the US military and ultimately the president.

The restrictions could affect Ukraine’s ability to intercept Russian attack drones and carry out mid-range strikes against Russian forces and military targets in occupied Ukrainian territories. A speed cap of 160 km/h was insufficient to intercept some jet-powered drones, an unnamed Ukrainian official told Axios. Ukrainian officials told Axios they suspect SpaceX imposed the restrictions to pressure Kyiv to accept US President Donald Trump’s demand to stop striking Russian oil refineries, though the motive remains unconfirmed. But Starlink does not work inside Russia, and the drones attacking Russian oil facilities use other communications systems, according to Reuters.

What Musk and the White House said

Musk did not directly address the throttling, Axios noted. Starlink, he wrote, “is a commercial service owned and controlled by SpaceX,” limited to civilian or defensive use.

White House officials told the Ukrainians they don’t have control over SpaceX, two sources told Axios. One said the administration would reach out to SpaceX to figure out what happened. The White House did not immediately respond to Axios’s request for comment.

How the cap disrupted drone missions

Presidential adviser Serhii Beskrestnov said on 14 October that SpaceX had imposed a 160 km/h limit on Starshield’s “military package” overnight without warning. Ukraine’s 7th Rapid Reaction Corps said mid-range strike drones must reach high speed quickly and that an unstable connection “will make it impossible to launch such aircraft or use them as intended.” One unit on the Huliaipole front had to cancel some missions, the corps told Novynarnia.

Ukrainian officials told Axios the system turned off when drones exceeded 160 km/h, and sometimes 80 km/h, before service was partially restored on 14 October. The Defense Ministry said SpaceX continues to restrict Starlink to 160 km/h and that it remains in communication “with partners and SpaceX regarding stable service conditions and the prevention of sudden restrictions,” Axios reported.

A diesel deal

The restrictions followed Trump’s 9 October deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin easing sanctions on Russian diesel. A day later, Trump told reporters: “We said you could do whatever you want to Russia, don’t hit the refineries,” the Kyiv Independent reported.

A porcelain fish survived the Russian strike that destroyed a room in the Kyiv apartment of Andrii Dubenko, a volunteer, dentist, and medic, his cousin Anna Danylenko wrote on Facebook and told UP Life, the lifestyle site of Ukrainska Pravda. Dubenko and two others were inside the nine-story building in Lisovyi masyv when the 13 October strike hit. It killed other residents.

The strike came during a ballistic attack aimed mainly at CHP-4, one of Kyiv’s main power plants, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, two days after Washington announced an energy ceasefire that Moscow never confirmed.

Lifted out in a rescue basket

Dubenko, his girlfriend, and a 72-year-old aunt were inside when the blast hit, Anna told UP Life. Her family was lucky, she wrote, and the rule of two walls saved their lives. The rule tells anyone who can’t reach a shelter to keep at least two walls between themselves and the street, away from windows. Fifteen minutes after the blast, State Emergency Service rescuers lifted the three out in a basket, Anna wrote. The aunt comforted the girlfriend, telling her not to live in the past but to look to the future, Anna said.

A hole where the window was

“Just on Monday I was sitting in their cozy apartment, where I grew up, and now I’m looking into a hole that just two days ago was a window,” Anna wrote.

She gathered what was left of the tea set the family used for samovar tea while her grandmother was alive. “It was my anchor, the anchor of our family,” she wrote. The porcelain fish survived. Her mother used to play with it, and Anna now calls it the “fish of unbreakability.” UP Life likened it to the ceramic rooster that survived in a wrecked kitchen in Borodianka, Kyiv Oblast, in 2022 and became a symbol of Ukrainian resilience.

The family didn’t sleep that night. Firefighters were still putting out the blaze overnight, so they could only get back inside in the morning.

“Charred ruins, lots of water in the hallway, which burned out. People are throwing broken things out the window, down by the building. The smell of burning is everywhere,” she told UP Life.

This live blog is now closed.

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The US government could spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a media campaign in South Africa to figure out why more white Afrikaners are not applying to become refugees to the US, as Donald Trump had hoped.

State department officials, according to an August proposal seen by the Guardian, outlined a roughly $335,000 research and advertising effort after applications to the refugee program “trended lower than expected” since Afrikaners were allowed to apply directly online in November 2025. The document, written by the US mission in South Africa with a department research unit for the embassy in Pretoria, admits officials know little about why.

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© Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

© Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

© Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Kimberly Guilfoyle’s departure has renewed scrutiny of the president’s picks for diplomatic posts, from France to Jamaica

Donald Trump has appointed family members, friends and loyal political allies to represent the US on the world stage, dispatching an extraordinary array of characters to embassies across the world.

While presidents of both parties have long rewarded donors and allies with plum ambassadorships, Trump has chosen loyalists willing to go to bat for him regardless of the implications for US-foreign relationships.

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© Photograph: Getty Images

© Photograph: Getty Images

© Photograph: Getty Images

Exclusive: Trump has falsely claimed Afrikaners are facing ‘white genocide’, but very few have applied to live in US

The US government could spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a media campaign in South Africa to figure out why more white Afrikaners are not applying to become refugees to the US, as Donald Trump had hoped.

State department officials, according to an August proposal seen by the Guardian, outlined a roughly $335,000 research and advertising effort after applications to the refugee program “trended lower than expected” since Afrikaners were allowed to apply directly online in November 2025. The document, written by the US mission in South Africa with a department research unit for the embassy in Pretoria, admits officials know little about why.

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© Photograph: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

© Photograph: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

© Photograph: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP

Claims that James Talarico suffered a mental health crisis spread across rightwing media, offering a warning about disinformation ahead of the US midterm election

Where is James Talarico? The question ricocheted around rightwing echo chambers before metastasising into a conspiracy theory – and a reminder of the persistent danger of disinformation in the US midterm elections.

The smear campaign began when Talarico, the Democratic candidate for the US Senate in Texas, was not seen in public for nine days. His campaign was slow to explain why. While nature abhors a vacuum, Donald Trump and social media seize on one and weaponise it.

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© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

The president is used to bullying his media targets. The quagmire that is his libel actions shows the broadcaster is working to a different script

For the greatest account of the BBC’s finest hour, one must turn to Penelope Fitzgerald’s novel, Human Voices, written in 1980 and set 40 years earlier, at the corporation’s Portland Place wartime HQ. Flanked by sandbags and infused with a smell of cooking “from the deep hold that suggested more strongly than ever a cruise on the Queen Mary”, the organisation that Fitzgerald describes is at once noble and deeply eccentric. “Broadcasting House stood headed on a fixed course south,” she writes. “With the best engineers in the world, and a crew varying between the intensely respectable and barely sane, it looked ready to scorn any disaster.”

In other words, a formidable foe, one that in the spring of 1940, in the face of anticipated Nazi invasion, decided “without prompting, that truth was more important than consolation, and, in the long run, would be more effective”. I bring this up in respect to the gathering storm of Donald Trump versus the BBC, a fight triggered by the US president’s $10bn defamation lawsuit – $10bn! It’s a wonder he didn’t go for $10 gazillion – brought against the corporation at the end of last year in response to a poorly edited episode of Panorama. The BBC was at fault, editing together comments made by the US president at a rally on 6 January 2021 to give, as the corporation’s apology put it, “the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action”. But it is fighting the lawsuit.

Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist

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© Photograph: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

© Photograph: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

© Photograph: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images

The vast majority of Americans say they are struggling to pay for gas and groceries, and are cutting back on luxuries. But what or who is actually behind these price rises? We asked you to tell us what's gotten too expensive in your own life. Now, Kai Wright and Carter Sherman enlist Guardian columnist and former labor secretary Robert Reich to explain why you’re feeling the pinch. From breaking down the market factors behind the cost of a $16 cheesesteak, to explaining why AI is playing into the price of a Nintendo Switch 2, Reich reveals who you should point the finger at in this economy. Additional music by Epidemic Sound

• Robert Reich has written this week’s edition of How We Win, a pop-up opinion newsletter with bold ideas for defeating Trumpism. Sign up here

• Send us your questions on how the US economy is shaping the US election

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© Photograph: Grid

© Photograph: Grid

© Photograph: Grid

As the midterm elections loom, Oliver Laughland and Tom Silverstone travel to rural West Virginia, a Republican party stronghold, to explore how soaring gas prices, war in the Middle East and datacenter expansion are affecting Donald Trump's popularity among his base. Although the state remains staunchly Republican, there are signs of a new politics emerging – and local Democrats are looking to capitalize on it

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© Photograph: The Guardian

© Photograph: The Guardian

© Photograph: The Guardian

Debris from a Russian drone damaged Cosmogony, a painting that set a national record in Ukraine, the Korsaks Museum of Contemporary Ukrainian Art in Lutsk, where the artwork was exhibited, reported on 14 October. A fire destroyed part of the painting’s final section, titled The Future, according to the statement.

Russian drones continue to attack Ukraine. Overnight into 15 October alone, Ukrainian air defense forces downed or suppressed 536 Russian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In recent days, Lutsk, a city in northwestern Ukraine, has been among the cities damaged by Russian attacks. Russian UAV attacks set fire to an oil depot, a wholesale warehouse, and a shopping center. At the museum, located on the shopping center’s premises, the fire damaged Ukraine’s largest painting, which covers a canvas of more than 2,000 square meters.

Russian attack damages museum in Lutsk

A fire broke out at the Adrenalin City shopping and entertainment complex, where the museum is located, Suspilne Lutsk reported. The blaze damaged the last of the painting’s six sections, according to the report.

“By destroying art and culture, they are also trying to destroy Ukrainians,” Tetiana Repnytska, director of the Museum of Contemporary Ukrainian Art in Lutsk, told Suspilne Lutsk.

Museum staff also had to evacuate more than 300 works by Ukrainian artist Emma Andiievska, which were exhibited alongside Cosmogony, Oles Tomakh, the museum’s chief curator, told Suspilne Lutsk. Some works could not be removed in time, resulting in shattered glass. However, the museum’s other exhibition halls were unaffected, the chief curator said.

The museum is weighing whether to fully restore the damaged fragment or keep the fire’s traces as a reminder of the war, and will decide after consulting the artist, Petro Antyp, and restoration specialists, it said. Repnytska told Suspilne Lutsk that the painting’s authors could also create a new section.

“Despite the shelling, we will continue to develop contemporary Ukrainian art and preserve it,” the museum director said.

Cosmogony—Ukraine’s largest painting

Artist Petro Antyp began working on the painting in November 2022, Suspilne Lutsk reported, and it took almost two years to complete, according to the museum’s website. The painting covers an area of 2,086 square meters.

In September 2024, the project set a national record as Ukraine’s largest painting.

The artwork explores the evolution of the universe, Earth, nature, humanity, society, culture, and science. Its six sections combine myths, legends, scientific theories, and symbols from different cultures, according to the museum’s website.

The project extends beyond the canvas, as the museum presents a multimedia performance that combines light, sound, and art.

Civilians killed and injured in Russia’s latest attack on Lutsk

Around noon on 14 October, a Russian jet-powered Shahed drone attacked Lutsk. Drone debris damaged a wholesale goods warehouse and a residential building, Roman Romaniuk, acting head of the Volyn Regional Military Administration, told Suspilne.

Falling drone debris sparked a large fire at the Yevrohurt wholesale warehouse. A nine-story residential building on Sobornosti Avenue was also damaged, Romaniuk later reported on social media.

Six people were killed in the strike on the warehouse: five were found at the scene, and another person died in the hospital. Eleven more people were injured, Romaniuk said.

Two other people, including a child, were injured in the residential building. Twelve people remained hospitalized, one of whom was in serious condition, according to the report.