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President Trump is changing course on taxpayer-funded advertising, the Pentagon has cut ties with a major AI company, and new health concerns are emerging overseas. Meanwhile, Wall Street is watching another volatile session, baseball’s postseason is putting favorites under pressure, and a Supreme Court fight could reshape political representation.
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The Big Read
The Pentagon Will Execute the Fort Hood Shooter by Firing Squad
The Pentagon has announced that Nidal Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people and wounded more than 30 at Fort Hood in 2009, will be executed by firing squad. A spokesman said Secretary of War Pete Hegseth recommended the method and President Trump approved it.
It would be the military's first execution of a service member since 1961. Hasan was convicted at a court-martial in 2013 after representing himself, clashing with standby attorneys who believed he was seeking a death sentence. The Supreme Court declined to review his case in 2024.
Trump Will Stop Paying for His Own Ads With Public Money
President Trump said on Monday that he will stop using taxpayer funds for the television advertisements he fronts, after bipartisan pushback. He wrote on social media that he would instead pay for the spots himself and with money raised through his MAGA Inc. super political action committee.
The ads praise the president and his policies, and they drew criticism along with questions over whether public money should ever have paid for them. Trump said buying them was "a rather standard thing to do," and described the spots as a positive promotion for the United States.
An Arkansas Medicaid Ad Draws Fire From the Right
A video from Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders promoting her state's stricter Medicaid work rules has upset conservative commentators, who objected to its portrayal of an unemployed recipient as a young white gamer named Brad. Sanders argued able-bodied people should not receive taxpayer-funded healthcare without working.
Five decades after Ronald Reagan popularized the "welfare queen" trope about people living well without working, the commentators wanted to know why this video cast a young white man in the role. In every other respect, it was standard Republican messaging on Medicaid work requirements.
World View
Quebec's separatist Parti Québécois is projected to win a minority government in Quebec, returning to power for the first time since 2014 and pledging another referendum on independence from Canada.
Nigeria declared three days of mourning after a military aircraft crashed in Ondo State, killing 25 passengers and seven crew members on a routine flight from Benin City to Lagos.
In Yemen's front-line city of Taiz, children walk past sniper positions to reach school, while UNICEF says roughly 3.2 million Yemeni children were out of school before last month's escalation.
Need To Know
Arizona's Maricopa County mistakenly mailed about 3,000 ballots early to voters, a vendor error officials say won't affect recipients, while President Trump called Maricopa "a very, very dishonest county."
A British Airways flight dropped 27,000 feet, the Chicago-bound jet descending to 9,000 feet before turning back over Ireland and circling for hours to burn fuel.
Rubio opened a three-nation NATO tour, calling Iceland "a good friend" as unease lingers over Trump's Arctic intentions after last month's Greenland deal.
Money & Markets
Ofcom is investigating Meta, asking whether Instagram's disappearing "Instants" feature was assessed for risk before its May launch under UK online safety law.
Samsung Electronics dropped 1.5% in Seoul as memory chipmaker SK Hynix slid 3.7%, while Japan's Nikkei 225 climbed 1.1%, back above 70,000 for the first time since early July.
Coca-Cola is adding flavors across its brands, Cherry Lime Coke landing in February and zero-sugar Powerade in January, with prebiotic sodas being tested in three states.
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Future Frontiers
The Pentagon has stopped using Anthropic's AI, months after Hegseth labeled the company a supply chain risk on national security grounds and set an August deadline.
Hundreds of fragile cassette and reel-to-reel recordings are being digitized before the tapes deteriorate in England's South West, with about 1,500 clips of dialects and sea shanties headed online.
Kenya confirmed its first Ebola case, a citizen who died days after flying to Nairobi from DR Congo, where more than 4,000 people have died this year in the outbreak.
The Score
Chicago took a 2-0 lead, the White Sox edging Cleveland 4-3 to put the Guardians one defeat from the end of their season.
New York made four errors, and three unearned runs sank the Yankees 5-2 in Tampa Bay, leaving them a loss from elimination.
Atlanta routed New Orleans 45-24, the Falcons piling up points on Monday night to close out the fourth week of the season.
Jannik Sinner's season is over, the top-ranked player shutting down with knee inflammation after not playing a match since winning Wimbledon in July.
Life & Culture
HBO content chief Casey Bloys signed a new multi-year contract extension after being named co-chair and chief content officer of Skydance DTC, overseeing both HBO Max and Paramount+.
Actor Michael Douglas, son of Kirk Douglas, told the SmartLess podcast the "nepo" label bothers him, arguing that in nearly every career, parents try helping children into the business.
Jamie Foxx is returning to comedy, talking publicly about the near-death health scare that took him off the road three years ago.
Deep Dive
The District That Was Drawn Away
What it is: Scotlandville, a nearly all-Black community of about 10,000 on the edge of Baton Rouge, is losing its congressman. After the Supreme Court's conservative majority struck down Louisiana's 6th District this year in a suit brought by non-Black voters, the new map cut the district's Black voting-age population from 53% to 25%. Representative Cleo Fields, 63, who grew up poor in Scotlandville, said in July he would not seek reelection and would return to the state legislature.
The detail: Fields has been redistricted twice in his career. He first reached the House in 1993, lost that seat to a 1996 ruling that found his district unconstitutional, and won the 6th in 2024 after an Alabama case forced Louisiana to draw a second majority-Black district. The community's landmark, a leadership institute with classrooms, a gymnasium and a stadium, exists because he held the seat. "Everything you see with the institute is a result of me being a member of Congress," he said.
Why it matters: Press Robinson Sr., an 89-year-old voting rights advocate, put it plainly: "We're back to where we were right after Reconstruction." Louisiana, Alabama and Tennessee all rushed new maps into place for November. Memphis's majority-Black district was split among three others, and in Alabama one district's Black voting-age share fell from 50% to 40%.
What to watch: Whether anyone from Scotlandville succeeds Fields. A local councilman said representation should come from someone who "lived through those same experiences."
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Today's Trivia
"The Jazz Singer" premiered in New York on this day in 1927, ending the silent era. Which star headlined it?
Extra Bits
McDonald's Monopoly is back, the sticker game returning to US restaurants and introducing a nostalgic promotion to a generation that missed it.
Pope Francis kept diaries, and they will be published this month, setting out his private reflections on his years running the Vatican.
Americans will pay for coffee grounds, with food scrap pickup services spreading to cities where composting at home is not an option.
On This Day
The Reno Gang carries out the first recorded US train robbery in Indiana (1866) · "The Jazz Singer" premieres in New York and ends the silent era (1927) · Egypt and Syria attack Israel, beginning the Yom Kippur War (1973) · President Anwar Sadat is assassinated in Cairo (1981) · Instagram launches (2010)
"You ain't heard nothin' yet!" — Al Jolson, in "The Jazz Singer," 1927
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