🚨 HAPPENING RIGHT NOW 🚨
Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters in Virginia Thursday he won't rule out the Justice Department stepping in if states' midterm certification process hits some doomsday scenario, though he insisted DOJ has no intention of improperly interfering with elections. The remarks came as DOJ pressed California to review roughly 20,000 voters flagged as possible noncitizens, and a federal judge temporarily limited DOJ election operations in nine states through Election Day. President Trump, meanwhile, barnstormed Iowa and South Carolina ahead of a Friday swing through Florida, with 11 days left before the midterms.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23rd, 2026
Before we get to today's news, here's what happened on this date in history.
A suicide bomber drove a truck loaded with explosives through security checkpoints into the lobby of U.S. Marine headquarters in Beirut on October 23, 1983, detonating a blast equivalent to 18,000 pounds of dynamite that killed 241 American military personnel, just hours after a separate bombing killed 58 French soldiers nearby. U.S. officials blamed the attack on Shiite militants linked to Iran, and within four months President Reagan withdrew the multinational peacekeeping force from Lebanon's civil war altogether.
Late-night television's most enduring host, Johnny Carson, was born John William Carson in Corning, Iowa, on October 23, 1925, decades before he took over NBC's "Tonight Show" from Jack Paar in 1962 and turned it into appointment viewing for the next three decades. Carson conducted roughly 22,000 interviews, created beloved characters like Carnac the Magnificent, and won six Emmys and the Presidential Medal of Freedom before handing the desk to Jay Leno in 1992.
🎤️ Trump Tells Rally Ilhan Omar 'Used a Fake Name' as DOJ Filing Names Her 'Ilhan Nur Said Elmi'
Campaigning in Sioux City, Iowa, Thursday night, President Trump called on House Speaker Mike Johnson to force Rep. Ilhan Omar's resignation, telling the crowd she "used a fake name to be sworn in" and had "openly admitted to fraud," hours after a federal court filing in the citizenship probe against her referred to her as "Ilhan Nur Said Elmi."
Trump argued that if a member of Congress was sworn in under a false identity, remaining in office would be "pretty tough" to justify.
He also mocked Omar's answer when asked whether her ex-husband is actually her brother — she said "Not to my knowledge" — calling it one of the worst political answers he'd ever heard.
Omar hasn't responded to the fake-name allegation specifically; she has previously called the broader citizenship investigation "political persecution" ahead of the midterms.
🇨🇺 Florida Secures Murder Warrant for Raúl Castro as Venezuela, China Condemn the Move
A Miami-Dade judge found probable cause this week to issue a no-bond Florida arrest warrant charging 95-year-old former Cuban leader Raúl Castro with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder over the 1996 shootdown of two unarmed Brothers to the Rescue planes that killed four Americans — a step Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier says could limit Castro's travel to extradition-treaty countries.
Cuban-born Rep. Carlos Giménez, R-Fla., called the warrant "deeply personal" and said no previous administration had gone this far to seek accountability for the regime.
The warrant cites Castro's own recorded statement describing giving orders before the shootdown; he already faces a separate federal indictment over the same incident.
Venezuela's ruling socialist party and China's government both publicly condemned the warrant this week as political theater aimed at Havana.
🏥 Feds Charge 15 — Including 6 Medical Professionals — in Nearly $2B California Healthcare Fraud Sweep
Federal agents conducted predawn raids across Southern California Thursday, charging 15 people — including six medical professionals — in schemes the Justice Department says bilked Medicare, Medi-Cal and private insurers out of roughly $1.8 billion, among them an Anaheim cardiothoracic surgeon accused of performing dozens of unnecessary artery procedures and two men accused of running a $1.6 billion Los Angeles rehab-center scam that kept patients sedated to keep billing insurers.
Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald called one of the schemes "the largest sober home fraud scheme the Department has ever prosecuted."
A Whittier woman is separately accused of submitting thousands of bogus prescriptions to Medi-Cal, while two other doctors allegedly took kickbacks for ordering unnecessary genetic tests.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said the charged doctors put "petty greed and criminality" ahead of their duty to patients.
📊 Shock Fox News Poll Shows Talarico and Paxton Dead Even in Texas Senate Race
A new Fox News poll of likely Texas voters finds Democrat James Talarico and Republican Ken Paxton tied at 49% each, down from Talarico's narrow 51%-49% edge last month — a stunning result in a state Democrats haven't carried in a U.S. Senate race in nearly four decades.
Fewer than 4 in 10 respondents said Paxton has good character and half called him too extreme; his favorability sits underwater at 41% favorable to 58% unfavorable.
Talarico leads Hispanic voters 64%-34% and independents by 27 points, while Paxton leads men and Talarico leads women by 18 points each way.
Texans still favor Republicans keeping Senate control 51%-47% overall, even as 54% disapprove of Trump's handling of the cost of living.
— Fox News
🤖 Google DeepMind Staffers Quit Over Company's Pentagon AI Contract
Several Google DeepMind employees have resigned in recent weeks in protest of the company's 2026 contract to deploy its AI across U.S. military classified environments, with London-based research engineer Sofia Liguori saying the deal left her "ashamed" to work there and AI researcher Andreas Kirsch warning Google's internal oversight isn't strong enough for military and classified deployment.
More than 600 Google workers had written to CEO Sundar Pichai before the contract was signed, urging him to block classified military use of the company's AI.
The contract bars the AI from being used for domestic mass surveillance or autonomous-weapons target selection "without appropriate human oversight and control."
Retired Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan warned the rush to deploy military AI could come "at the expense of the rigor and discipline of test and evaluation."