🚨 HAPPENING RIGHT NOW 🚨
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, crossed party lines one week before Election Day to endorse Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins for governor over all three Republicans in the race, saying Alaska’s next leader shouldn’t be “hamstrung by partisan divisions” and praising his search for “common ground” on the state’s fiscal future, energy costs and economic growth. President Trump countered by endorsing Bernadette Wilson in the same ranked-choice contest. The crossover comes as Fox News’ latest Power Rankings show House Democrats holding a wide generic-ballot edge nationally even as individual Senate battlegrounds remain razor-close with just one week left.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29th, 2026
Wall Street collapsed completely on October 29, 1929, when a record 16.4 million shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange and the ticker tape ran so far behind that investors didn’t know how much they’d lost until hours later. The crash capped a six-day unraveling that began with “Black Thursday” on October 24, after a decade of speculative excess had driven stock prices far beyond what the real economy could support. By 1932, stocks were worth roughly a fifth of their summer 1929 peak, and within four years nearly half of U.S. banks had failed as unemployment neared 30%, cementing the crash’s role in triggering the Great Depression.
Sen. John Glenn strapped back into a rocket on October 29, 1998, becoming the oldest person ever to fly in space when he launched aboard the shuttle Discovery at age 77 — a full 36 years after his first orbital flight made him a Mercury-program hero. The nine-day mission studied how spaceflight affects the aging body, turning Glenn’s return into both a scientific experiment and a bookend to a career that carried him from fighter pilot to astronaut to four-term U.S. senator. The flight remains one of NASA’s more unusual pairings of celebrity and hard science.
⚖️ Supreme Court Lets Texas-DOJ Deal End Biden-Era Rule That Let Judges Pause Deportations
The Supreme Court, with no noted dissents, let stand a lower-court ruling that scrapped a 2024 Biden-era rule letting immigration judges use “administrative closure” to indefinitely pause deportation proceedings, clearing the way for a deal Texas struck with the Trump Justice Department to kill the rule outright.
Texas sued in June arguing the rule was adopted without legal authority; the DOJ agreed, and U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor granted the request to vacate it the same day it was filed.
Baltimore, New Haven, Columbus and the advocacy group Centro Legal de la Raza tried to intervene in August, arguing the move could lead to deportations and lost city tax revenue, but O’Connor rejected the bid.
The cities asked the Supreme Court to block the ruling while they appealed, calling the Texas-DOJ arrangement “egregious collusion”; federal lawyers countered that the cities lacked standing to sue.
🗳️ DOJ Says It Found 400+ Noncitizens on Washington Voter Rolls — “Tip of the Iceberg”
Federal prosecutors said they’ve identified more than 400 noncitizens registered to vote in Washington state who cast roughly 1,500 ballots between them, with some voting as many as 27 times and the earliest fraudulent votes dating back to 1984.
Acting U.S. Attorney Neil Floyd said investigators found the noncitizens by cross-referencing USCIS benefits records against voter rolls, calling the count “only the tip of the iceberg” and estimating the real number is “going to be in the thousands.”
Many of those identified are green card holders who the DOJ says were automatically registered through Washington’s Motor Voter program “against their knowledge.”
Floyd said he deliberately didn’t check whether the individuals voted in the current midterms, saying he didn’t want to “interfere with the current election,” and the DOJ is asking the state to set aside the flagged ballots.
📜 Comey’s Third Prosecution Hits a Snag — Defense Says DOJ Blew the Deadline
The Justice Department’s new two-count Espionage Act case against former FBI Director James Comey — alleging he directed a leak of national defense information to a New York Times reporter in October 2016 — landed exactly ten years after the alleged leak, and Comey’s lawyers say that’s one day too late.
Prosecutors filed the case as a criminal information rather than seeking a grand jury indictment; Comey’s team argues the law’s ten-year extension for national-security leak cases applies only to an indictment, making the filing fatal.
The DOJ says the deadline applies regardless of which charging document is used and that the challenge is premature since no indictment has been obtained; U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden unsealed the case this week and hasn’t ruled on the dismissal fight.
It’s the third separate federal case brought against Comey, who denies wrongdoing; court filings show prosecutors had planned to seek a grand jury indictment Oct. 9 but agreed to hold off while the dismissal challenge plays out.
🔥 Fire Triggers Emergency at South Carolina Nuclear Site; One Hurt, No Contamination
A fire broke out at the Savannah River National Laboratory on the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site near Aiken, South Carolina, Tuesday evening, prompting officials to declare a Site Area Emergency, barricade entrances and order workers to shelter in place before lifting the alert hours later.
One employee was taken to the hospital with minor injuries; the fire was extinguished, and a DOE spokesperson said “no radiological contamination has been reported,” on-site or off.
SRS temporarily restricted rail, river and air traffic near the facility as a precaution while state and local emergency agencies were notified.
By Wednesday morning, SRS said there were no ongoing operational emergencies or scheduled delays, and normal traffic and work had resumed.
🤠 Dueling Trump-Talarico Rallies Turn Lubbock Into the Center of the Political Universe
Ken Paxton and James Talarico held dueling rallies four miles apart in deep-red Lubbock Tuesday night, with President Trump joining Paxton at the Civic Center while roughly 4,000 Talarico supporters packed a competing event near the Fiesta Center, one week before a Texas Senate race polls show as a dead heat.
Paxton supporters camped out overnight for Trump’s appearance; Lubbock resident Jenny said “Paxton is going to wipe the floor with him,” while attendee Nathan cited gun rights as his top issue.
Talarico backers read the dueling same-night rallies as a sign of Republican nerves; supporter Natalie said, “I think they have to be nervous.”
Lubbock resident Elias criticized Paxton’s reliance on Trump and his impeachment history, saying “I think it shows that Paxton is a weak leader,” while attendee Paloma predicted, “This is the year that we flip blue.”
— Fox News