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Trump Waives Congress’s Sweeping Russia Sanctions Two Days Before They Took Effect as Zelenskyy Urges Americans to Speak Up: October 17, 2026

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has signed an executive order waiving a sweeping package of sanctions on Russia that Congress passed and he signed into law in September, blocking measures two days before they were due to take effect, BBC News, CBC News and DW reported.

“I am hereby waiving the application of such sanctions, restrictions, and duties provided for in the Graham Act,” the order said, adding that Trump had certified to Congress that the waiver is “in the national interests of the United States.” The White House posted the decision late Friday and did not immediately explain how it served that interest, DW said.

The Lindsey Graham Act gave the president power to impose tariffs of up to 100% on the top buyers of Russian oil and gas — most significantly China and India — and targeted senior Russian figures including Vladimir Putin, Russian banks and Moscow’s “shadow fleet” of tankers. Many of those provisions have now been waived, according to the BBC.

Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev called the move “an important and truly historic moment.” Democrats pushed back: Rep. Don Beyer called it “Trump’s latest surrender to Putin,” and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who helped draft the bill, said the waivers had “everything to do with sucking up to Vladimir Putin.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday it was unfortunate the U.S. had decided to “completely disregard” the law. “This Act could have helped enormously — and still can! But it needs to actually work, and every voice in support of it matters,” he wrote on X, as CBC News reported.

Zelenskyy said Russia struck more than 15 Ukrainian energy facilities overnight, warning that Moscow “is trying to cause a blackout in Ukraine – right before winter.” Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched four cruise missiles and 332 attack drones. Zelenskyy also said Ukrainian and U.S. negotiators spoke on Friday and could meet next week.

Sources: BBC News, CBC News, DW

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Teen Gunman Kills Three Children and a Teacher at a Bend, Oregon, Elementary School Before a Bystander Shoots Him: October 16, 2026

BEND, Ore. — A 16-year-old shot his way into Silver Rail Elementary School on Thursday afternoon and killed three children, aged 5, 8 and 11, and a teacher before a community member pursued him inside and shot him dead, police said, BBC News and DW reported.

Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said the gunman forced entry by shooting at locked doors. The first 911 call, at about 1 p.m., came from a person reporting that someone with a long gun was shooting into their car outside the school. Officers arrived about three minutes after the bystander confronted the attacker.

A 7-year-old and a 54-year-old teacher were taken to a hospital in critical condition, the BBC said. Police have not named the suspect, a local teenager, or the victims, and it was unclear whether he had any link to the school, which has about 450 students and more than 40 staff.

Gov. Tina Kotek praised the community member who “heroically intervened to stop further loss of life.” Emergency dispatch audio suggested the bystander was a pupil’s father, though police have not confirmed that, BBC News reported.

Hundreds attended a candlelight vigil in Drake Park on Thursday night, and Bend schools were closed Friday.

Sources: BBC News, DW, CBC News

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Maduro Calls Torture Charges ‘False’ as a New York Judge Enters Not-Guilty Pleas for Him and Cilia Flores: October 16, 2026

NEW YORK — Deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro told a federal court in New York on Thursday that new torture charges against him were “false accusations and false testimony,” prompting the judge to enter a not-guilty plea on his behalf, BBC News and The Guardian reported.

“I reject this document entirely,” Maduro said through a translator before U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein cut in. His wife, Cilia Flores, said: “I am completely innocent. I am not guilty.” The couple, captured in a U.S. military raid in Caracas in January, remain jailed in Brooklyn.

A rewritten indictment unveiled last week accuses them of creating and maintaining “a violent system of repression” in which thousands of Venezuelans were killed, harassed or tortured, using methods including “electric shock, asphyxiation, rape, forced nudity, prolonged isolation, starvation,” the BBC said. Prosecutors allege U.S. citizens were among the victims.

The torture counts were added to earlier narco-terrorism, drug-trafficking and weapons charges. Their lawyers argue the case should be dismissed on sovereign-immunity grounds. Both sides want the June 2027 trial moved from June 1 to June 14, The Guardian reported.

Sources: BBC News, The Guardian

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Trump Ousts Kimberly Guilfoyle as U.S. Ambassador to Greece After Corruption Allegations: October 15, 2026

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration asked Kimberly Guilfoyle to resign as U.S. ambassador to Greece amid mounting allegations she sought donor help with credit-card bills in exchange for access and behaved inappropriately in Athens, new White House press secretary Katie Zacharia said, according to BBC News.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday she had done a “good job” but would “not be there” longer: “I didn’t like what I read.” Zacharia, in her first and unusually brief briefing, confirmed Guilfoyle was “asked to resign” and called her “a wonderful asset,” without detailing the claims.

Guilfoyle, a former Fox News host and ex-fiancée of Donald Trump Jr., said on X that her ambassadorship — which she called the “honour of a lifetime” — was “coming to an end,” denied wrongdoing, and vowed to “vigorously defend” her reputation against what she called “false accusations,” the BBC reported.

She was nominated in December 2024 shortly before Trump’s return to office. The Athens post had grown tenuous over the past week as the allegations piled up, the BBC said.

Sources: BBC News

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Treasury Hits Bank of America With More Than $1.21 Billion in Anti-Money-Laundering and Sanctions Penalties: October 14, 2026

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Treasury Department announced more than $1.21 billion in penalties against Bank of America for anti-money-laundering and sanctions failures, the third-largest penalty in Treasury history and the largest ever by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Treasury said Tuesday.

FinCEN assessed a $1.2 billion civil penalty — crediting a record $750 million OCC fine — after finding the nation’s second-largest bank failed to timely report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions, including more than $1 billion tied to national-security risks such as Chinese money-laundering networks and trade-based laundering with a southwest-border nexus, the Treasury Department said. OFAC separately settled 475 apparent sanctions violations for $11.6 million.

“When a bank of this size fails to meet its anti-money laundering and sanctions obligations, the consequences extend far beyond its own walls,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said. Regulators said the bank overly relied on law-enforcement and peer-bank tips instead of its own monitoring, effectively outsourcing proactive detection.

Bank of America admitted it willfully violated the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to maintain a compliant AML program, conduct foreign correspondent due diligence and file suspicious activity reports. In a statement to the BBC it said third-quarter results would include a non-tax-deductible $1.2 billion charge, about 17 cents a share, and that remediation work is underway. The consent order requires a lookback and independent reviews of monitoring, customer due diligence and data governance.

Sources: U.S. Department of the Treasury, BBC News, The Associated Press

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U.S. Inflation Jumps to 3.7% in September as Gasoline, Clothes and Air Fares Climb Ahead of the Midterms: October 14, 2026

WASHINGTON — U.S. consumer prices rose 3.7% in the year through September, up from 3.4% in August, as gasoline, clothing and air fares got more expensive weeks before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, the Associated Press and BBC News reported Wednesday.

The Labor Department said the consumer price index jumped 0.6% from August to September, after a 0.4% rise the prior month. The annual reading was hotter than economists had expected. The Associated Press said higher gas, clothes and air fares drove the acceleration.

The BBC said gasoline prices have spiked after Middle East energy supplies were disrupted by the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran, with crude moving from just over $70 a barrel before the war to more than $100. Cost-of-living pressures are a central campaign issue for both parties.

The Federal Reserve targets 2% inflation and last month raised its benchmark rate by a quarter point to a 3.75%–4.00% range, its first hike in three years. Markets still see only a modest chance of another increase at the Oct. 27–28 meeting, but Wednesday’s print keeps affordability at the centre of the midterm fight.

Sources: The Associated Press, BBC News

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Speaker Johnson, the EU and Australia’s Prime Minister Push Back on the Pentagon’s Plan to Livestream Nidal Hasan’s Firing-Squad Execution: October 13, 2026

WASHINGTON — Opposition is mounting at home and abroad to the Pentagon’s plan to livestream the Dec. 3 firing-squad execution of Nidal Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009, with House Speaker Mike Johnson, the European Commission and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese all raising objections, CNA, France 24 and ABC News (Australia) reported.

“The concern would be that you would create a video that would be a recruiting tool for future terrorists,” Johnson said in an interview broadcast Monday by CBS News, according to CNA. “We’ve got to think through the policy implications of all that.” Johnson said he would not watch the execution if it were aired. It would be the first U.S. military execution by firing squad since 1945, CNA said.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has defended the idea. “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public,” he said. President Donald Trump has said a final decision on whether to broadcast the execution has yet to be made, and Vice President JD Vance has cast doubt on whether it will happen, ABC reported.

In Brussels, Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said platforms operating in Europe must enforce their own rules under the Digital Services Act. “If you look at some platforms, Meta explicitly forbids the live streaming of capital punishments, and X and TikTok both forbid … shocking content, glorifying violence,” he said, according to France 24. “No comment on what they do in the US but in Europe, we have clear obligations.”

In Canberra, Albanese said Tuesday his government would do “whatever it can” to stop the stream being seen in Australia. “I find the idea of live streaming the death of anybody completely abhorrent,” he told the ABC, adding that platforms have “a social responsibility here to do the right thing.” Australia’s eSafety Commission said it lacks the power to proactively block such a stream, and Foreign Minister Penny Wong told the Senate it would be “deeply distressing for any such vision to be live streamed.”

Sources: CNA, France 24, ABC News (Australia)

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Alvaro Pulido, Alex Saab’s Fugitive Partner in Venezuelan Bribery Schemes, Is Taken Into U.S. Custody After a $10 Million Manhunt: October 12, 2026

MIAMI — Alvaro Pulido, a Colombian businessman wanted for years in the United States on charges of laundering money from bribery schemes involving Venezuelan government officials, has been taken into U.S. custody, The Associated Press and the U.S. Justice Department reported.

Pulido was indicted in Miami federal court in 2019 and again in 2021 as part of an investigation into his longtime business partner, Alex Saab, a onetime ally of ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, AP said. The Drug Enforcement Administration and the State Department had offered a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to his arrest. A Homeland Security Task Force spokesperson, Nicole Navas Oxman, said Sunday that the investigation was led by the DEA, FBI and Homeland Security Investigations. Details of where and how he was arrested were not released.

The 62-year-old, also known as German Enrique Rubio Salas, is due to make his initial appearance Tuesday afternoon in the Southern District of Florida, the Justice Department said. The 2021 indictment accuses him and four co-defendants of paying bribes to win about $1.6 billion in contracts to supply food and medicine through CLAP, a Venezuelan government program, inflating costs to fund the bribes, and moving about $180 million through or to the United States.

The 2019 case accuses Pulido and Saab of laundering about $350 million from a bribery scheme built around a contract to construct low-income housing, in which prosecutors say they exploited Venezuela’s government-controlled exchange rate with fraudulent import documents. He faces 13 money-laundering-related counts across the two cases, each carrying up to 20 years in prison. The department said he also had a 1997 drug-trafficking conviction in Italy under his alias.

“Those accused of exploiting the American financial system should understand that distance, borders, and time will not shield them from the reach of the American legal system,” the department said in its statement.

Sources: The Associated Press, U.S. Department of Justice

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Americans Robert Hall and Michael Woodford Win the Nobel Economics Prize for Models Central Banks Use to Tame Economic Shocks: October 12, 2026

STOCKHOLM — U.S. economists Robert E. Hall of Stanford University and Michael Woodford of Columbia University won the 2026 Nobel memorial prize in economic sciences on Monday for work on how monetary and fiscal policy can smooth out swings in the economy, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced, Al Jazeera, CBC News and The Guardian reported.

“The laureates’ work has provided us with a stable theoretical foundation for the models that are now used by central banks and governments around the world,” said John Hassler, chair of the prize committee. “With them, we are better equipped to deal with shocks in the economy, such as energy crises or sudden changes in how much households consume.”

The academy credited the pair with “a paradigm shift in stabilisation policy.” When the oil shocks of the 1970s brought high inflation and high unemployment at the same time, the Keynesian models then in use stopped working. “This is the Keynesian recipe and it worked well — until it didn’t,” committee member Timo Boppart said, according to CBC News. Hall built models on forward-looking household behavior, and Woodford built on that work to create the New Keynesian model, now the main tool for policymakers, which was used after the 2008 financial crisis, The Guardian said.

Woodford spoke to the committee by phone from New York. “It’s a tremendous honour, it’s a surprise,” he said.

The prize, formally the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, was established by Sweden’s central bank and first awarded in 1969. It is worth a combined $1.2 million and is the last of this year’s Nobel prizes. Last year’s winners were Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt.

Sources: Al Jazeera, CBC News, The Guardian

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Federal Agents Search Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Washington Home in a Criminal Investigation Three Weeks Before the Midterms: October 12, 2026

WASHINGTON — Federal agents searched the Washington home of Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota on Monday morning as part of a criminal investigation, The Associated Press reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The search was carried out by Homeland Security Investigations agents, the people said. The Justice Department said HSI agents executed a judicially authorized search warrant secured by the department in the Washington, D.C., area but gave no other details. “This enforcement action is part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation,” the department said.

Fox News, citing unnamed sources, reported that agents were examining immigration paperwork that the congresswoman’s father filled out when she was a child, and posted video of what appeared to be officers in HSI jackets at the residence, according to The Guardian. Neither Omar’s office, the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security nor the White House immediately responded to the Guardian’s requests for comment.

President Donald Trump and his allies have accused Omar of obtaining citizenship fraudulently, and Trump has openly talked about denaturalizing her. Omar has consistently denied the accusations.

Omar, 44, represents Minnesota’s 5th District, which includes Minneapolis. First elected in 2018, she and Rep. Rashida Tlaib became the first Muslim women in Congress. The search comes three weeks before the midterm elections and is likely to bring new accusations that Trump is using the government for political ends, The Guardian said.

Sources: The Associated Press, The Guardian

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