BREAKING: North Carolina lawmakers pass new congressional map boosting Republicans
New York City mayoral candidates Zohran Mamdani, Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa are holding their final debate before the November general election.
President Donald Trump will meet with the NATO secretary general today about efforts to bring about a ceasefire in Ukraine. Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images
Trump said in a post on Truth Social this afternoon that cattle ranchers in the U.S. are doing well because of the tariffs.
“The Cattle Ranchers, who I love, don’t understand that the only reason they are doing so well, for the first time in decades, is because I put Tariffs on cattle coming into the United States, including a 50% Tariff on Brazil,” he wrote.
He added, “If it weren’t for me, they would be doing just as they’ve done for the past 20 years — Terrible! It would be nice if they would understand that, but they also have to get their prices down, because the consumer is a very big factor in my thinking, also!”
His comment comes after he proposed the idea of purchasing beef from Argentina. The CEO of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association denounced the possible plan earlier this week.
“This plan only creates chaos at a critical time of the year for American cattle producers, while doing nothing to lower grocery store prices,” Colin Woodall said in a statement.
The International Court of Justice, the United Nations’ top legal body, said in an advisory opinion today that Israel is required to facilitate U.N. aid efforts in the Gaza Strip.
The case came in the wake of a decision last year to ban UNRWA, the U.N. relief agency supporting Palestinian refugees.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in a post to X that it rejected the court’s determination, which it called “entirely predictable” and “another political attempt to impose political measures against Israel under the guise of ‘International Law.'”
North Korea performed its first ballistic missile tests in five months Wednesday, days before President Donald Trump and other leaders are expected to meet in South Korea.
South Korea’s military detected multiple suspected short-range ballistic missiles launched from an area south of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said. It said the weapons flew about 217 miles each in a northeastern direction but did not say where they landed.
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Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., is still speaking on the Senate floor after delivering remarks for more than 16 hours in protest of what he described as Trump’s “authoritarian” leadership and warning that the republic is facing “the biggest threat” since the Civil War.
“President Trump is shredding our Constitution. Is it OK for masked federal agents to arrest people off the street because of their skin color or their accent? No way, not in a free America,” Merkley said in his opening remarks around 6:30 p.m. ET last night.
The Democratic senator went on to rebuke the Trump administration for other actions, including weaponizing the Department of Justice to attack his political opponents and canceling research grants to universities in an attempt to gain control over what can be taught.
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A Jan. 6 defendant named Christopher Moynihan, who was among the hundreds whom Trump pardoned in January, has been arrested on accusations of making a death threat against House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. Moynihan allegedly said he planned to kill Jeffries in New York City.
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., is heading back to New Hampshire.
The 2020 presidential candidate will headline the state Democratic Party’s Eleanor Roosevelt dinner on Nov. 14, party Chair Raymond Buckley announced in an email today.
Booker is the latest in a string of national Democratic figures who could run for president in 2028 to turn up in New Hampshire this year. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker headlined another state party dinner in April, and Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Ruben Gallego of Arizona, Rep. Ro Khanna of California, and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear have all traveled to the traditional early primary state, too.
Vice President JD Vance stressed today that U.S. officials were not seeking to babysit the Gaza ceasefire and that Israel was a partner, not a “vassal state,” as questions rose over the next steps in the Middle East.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has hosted a string of senior American officials in recent days, declared in a statement prior to the meeting that his country was “not a protectorate of the United States” and would “decide on its security.”
The pair exchanged words of friendship and optimism at their joint news conference in Jerusalem as Washington worked to ensure the truce brokered by Trump will hold, while also addressing concerns over what its role in those efforts would be.
Vance meets with Netanyahu today. Nathan Howard / Pool via Getty Images
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As the government shutdown enters Day 22, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., is giving a marathon Senate floor speech that began last night to protest Trump’s policies. Meanwhile, the president is suggesting he would meet with Democratic leaders only after the shutdown ends. NBC’s Ryan Nobles reports for “TODAY.”
The International Court of Justice is expected to issue a ruling today on whether Israel violated international law by imposing a monthslong blockade of aid into Gaza earlier this year before allowing just a limited amount of supplies to enter.
Israel launched the aid blockade in March amid a ceasefire with Hamas before ending the short-lived truce, which began in mid-January, later that month. It lifted the blockade, which fueled a hunger crisis in the territory, in May, allowing a “basic” amount of supplies into the enclave.
In August, the world’s leading body on hunger declared a famine in part of the enclave’s north, including Gaza City, as deaths from starvation in the territory continued to rise.
The court is expected to deliver a nonbinding legal advisory opinion, but its decision could deepen international pressure on Israel to allow more aid into the territory under the current ceasefire, with humanitarian groups, including the World Food Program, calling for more aid to be distributed.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese expressed support for Kevin Rudd, his country’s ambassador to the U.S., after Trump said he didn’t like Rudd during a visit to the White House.
Rudd, a former Australian prime minister who has been U.S. ambassador since 2023, had made disparaging online comments about Trump in the past — saying in 2020, for example, that he was “the most destructive president in history” — but deleted them after Trump was voted back into the White House last November.
Asked by a journalist about the Australian ambassador’s past criticism of him Monday during his first official meeting with Albanese, Trump first asked whether the ambassador was still working for Australia before being told it was Rudd, who was in the room. “I don’t like you either,” Trump told him as others laughed. “I don’t. And I probably never will.”
Albanese later said at a news conference that Rudd was doing a “fantastic job” and that he didn’t think the exchange would affect U.S. relations with Australia, noting that as reporters left the room, Trump could be heard saying that “all is forgiven.”
Albanese has resumed his journey home after his plane was diverted to St. Louis due to what a spokesperson for the Australian Defense Department said was “a medical incident involving an Air Force member on board.”
Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., is delivering a Senate floor speech that has stretched overnight for more than 13 hours.
Merkley’s office said that he is delivering the speech “to ring the alarm bells of the Trump administration’s tightening authoritarian grip on the country.”
He began speaking shortly before 6:30 p.m. yesterday.
In April, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., set the record for the longest Senate speech with remarks that went more than than 25 hours.
When delivering a speech on the floor, a senator cannot leave for a bathroom break or sit down. Doing so would mean losing control of the Senate floor.
A person was arrested last night after ramming a vehicle into a Secret Service security checkpoint a few hundred feet from the White House, officials said.
A Secret Service spokesperson said the vehicle drove into the gate at 17th and E St, NW, in Washington about 10:37 p.m. ET. The suspect has not been named and so far there has been no suggestion of any motive or whether the collision was intentional.
News agency images showed a black car having collided with a security checkpoint on the western side of the White House complex.
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Just hours after Trump said peace talks with Russia’s Vladimir Putin were on hold to avoid wasting his time, the Kremlin launched intense overnight strikes that killed at least six people in Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials said the Russian attacks on Kyiv and other cities were the latest proof that Putin was not ready for peace and merely wanted to use negotiations to drag out the war.
Asked about Trump’s remarks, the Kremlin said today that neither president wanted to waste time — and cautioned that any meeting would require further “preparation.”
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Former Republican Sen. John Sununu announced his campaign for New Hampshire’s Senate seat this morning, jumping into a competitive primary ahead of an open battleground race next November.
Sununu, who served the Granite State in the Senate until he lost a re-election bid to Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., in 2008, said in an announcement video, “I’d be honored to have your support and return to the Senate to help calm the waters.”
Read the full story here.
Speaking at a news conference alongside Vice President JD Vance. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the relationship between the U.S. and Israel as a “partnership like never before.”
Calling Trump’s recent visit to Israel following the start of the country’s ceasefire with Hamas “one that will be remembered in the chronicles of our nation” Netanyahu said that over the past year, his government had shared an “alliance and partnership with the United States unlike anything before.”
“I’ve been around for quite a while, worked with many U.S. administrations. I appreciate the partnerships and support we’ve had, but this is something entirely different,” he said.
Netanyahu said he was impressed by the vice president’s “clarity, sharpness, solidarity toward our shared mission, and genuine friendship, both in public meetings and private conversations.”
Thanking Netanyahu, Vance said the days ahead were “critical,” adding “we are very excited to sit down and work together on the Gaza peace plan.” The vice president noted that there were also “very difficult” tasks ahead, including the effort to “dismantle Hamas’s weapons and power structure, but also to rebuild Gaza.”
NBC News