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The Supreme Court has revived a federal system checking voter citizenship weeks before the midterms, despite warnings it has flagged eligible voters. Meanwhile, an investigation found no formal security plan before Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the Pentagon’s Anthropic blacklist survives appeal, and Meta faces potentially massive privacy penalties.

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The Supreme Court on Friday revived a controversial federal data system that the Department of Homeland Security rebuilt to check voters' citizenship. Tens of millions of records had already been run through SAVE before a federal judge blocked it in June, and the tool has mistakenly flagged some eligible voters.

All three liberal justices dissented, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned that the system could mistakenly strip eligible voters of their rights. The conservative majority noted that federal law already bars broad voter-roll purges in the weeks before an election, limiting the ruling's reach, though states can still check individual voters.

An independent review released Friday by Utah Valley University found the school never conducted a formal security assessment, wrote no event action plan and deferred critical decisions to Turning Point USA. It also found the organization insisted Kirk speak outdoors despite security concerns.

Kirk, 31, was killed on Sept. 10, 2025, by a sniper on a rooftop more than 400 feet away. The report makes nearly 150 recommendations, including clear criteria for moving events indoors, and notes the campus had just 13 sworn officers. President Jon Anderson said the university must "learn from the findings."

A federal appeals court panel in Washington upheld the Pentagon's blacklisting of Anthropic on Friday, ruling 2-1 that the Defense Department had "ample support" to label the AI company a supply chain risk. The designation bars the military and its contractors from using Anthropic's Claude models in defense work.

Writing for the majority, Judge Gregory Katsas said the department reasonably feared Anthropic might manipulate Claude's design to block national-security functions. Both judges in the majority were Trump nominees. The ruling stands apart from one this summer, when a California federal judge found the Pentagon acted illegally in punishing the company.

Russia has widened its attacks to strike Ukraine's data centers and internet providers, Zelensky says, after a drone hit a Kyiv business center Friday, killing four people.

Iran's foreign minister offered to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if Washington lifts its naval blockade, waives oil sanctions and observes a ceasefire that includes Lebanon.

Fighting has returned to Ethiopia's Tigray, where the Pretoria peace deal nears collapse and Ethiopian Airlines halted flights after Tigrayan forces seized Mekelle airport.

Prediction markets lost another appeals fight as the 6th Circuit ruled Ohio and Tennessee can regulate Kalshi's sports event contracts under their own gambling laws.

Volkswagen is recalling 2.86 million vehicless, including Tiguan, Golf and Audi Q3 models, over a corrosion-prone screw whose failure could cause a loss of steering.

A powerful nor'easter strengthened on Friday, bringing storm-force winds and massive waves to the East Coast, with gusts near 65 mph forecast for Cape Cod and the islands.

Wall Street closed out its first winning week in the last three as Brent crude slipped below $98, lifting the S&P 500 0.5% to within 0.7% of its record.

Saudi Arabia is shipping 6 million barrels a day this month, its highest level since the war with Iran began, even after shutting its drone-damaged East-West pipeline.

Coca-Cola hired away Monster Energy's Rob Gehring to run its North America unit from Dec. 1, as shoppers cut back on spending under higher gas and grocery prices.

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Hackers who breached the FBI claim they hold blood and urine test results for thousands of special agents, along with names and addresses, in a leak the bureau is investigating.

Katalyst's three-armed rescue craft, Link, plunged back to Earth overnight, ending a $30 million NASA-sponsored effort to save the aging Swift Observatory, which is expected to follow in November.

AI agents from a platform called iLands are flooding researchers with requests for money and time, with one NYU philosopher receiving more than 50 in a single week.

Manchester City have been found guilty of breaking the majority of 115 financial rules, with sanctions still undecided and the club expected to appeal, BBC Sport has been told.

Bob Pettit, the NBA's first MVP, has died at age 93, LSU announced; the Hawks great was also the league's first player to score 20,000 points.

Cooper Flagg's rookie debut patch card sold for a record $8.04 million, after a late bidding war sent it from $3.5 million to the finish in five hours.

Taylor Swift released an extended edition of The Life of a Showgirl, adding four new tracks including "Patient Zero," whose video debuts Sunday at the VMAs.

U2 marked 50 years together with a gig at their old school, treating pupils at Dublin's Mount Temple to a playground set that left Bono briefly lost for words.

Novelist Louise Erdrich has won the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, joining past winners Bob Dylan, Frank Gehry and Ava DuVernay on an honor that dates to 1994.

What it is: A Santa Fe jury on Friday found Facebook liable for deceiving users about privacy, tallying more than 43 million violations of New Mexico's consumer protection law. Jurors reviewed 34 company statements on data protection and content policies and found it deceived users in almost every case.

The detail: The two-week trial centered on the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which a third-party personality quiz harvested data from roughly 87 million profiles. Jurors found the deceptive statements affected all of the state's more than two million residents.

The state is seeking the maximum $5,000 per violation, which could add up to more than $200 billion. Meta said it disagrees and "will continue to defend ourselves against efforts to distort our record." In one defense win, jurors found the state didn't prove false claims about removing harmful content.

Why it matters: New Mexico is the only state pursuing its own Cambridge Analytica case. Meta's August settlement of up to $18 billion in a multistate child-safety suit released it from future liability over the breach, and only Florida also declined to sign. Villanova law professor Peter Ormerod called it "unlikely" this case penalizes the company "in a meaningful way," given its high margins.

What to watch: A judge will set penalties at a hearing not yet scheduled, though Attorney General Raúl Torrez expects a judgment within weeks, with any money going to education. The state is also seeking an injunction against similar practices.

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A North Carolina grandmother won $100,000 on the same scratch-off game for the second time in about a year, and this time plans to spend it on a beach vacation.

Knicks star Jalen Brunson was asked for "a silly one" in a promo for his SNL debut after a straight-faced intro, and calmly replied, "That was a silly one."

UPI marked National Comic Book Day by revisiting five times superheroes leapt into the news, including a costumed Spider-Man who helped a man in a wheelchair cross an Arkansas road.

Francis Drake returns to Plymouth after circling the globe (1580) · West Side Story opens on Broadway (1957) · Kennedy and Nixon hold the first televised presidential debate (1960) · The Beatles release Abbey Road in the UK (1969) · Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov dismisses a false missile-attack alarm (1983)

"I know what it means to be poor. I know what it means to see people who are unemployed." — Richard Nixon, during the first Kennedy-Nixon debate

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