NTD News Today

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that Russia should share more information about the death of a plague laboratory worker who died last week, an incident that he said Washington is watching "very closely.”

"I think it's incumbent upon Russia to obviously share more information with the world," Rubio told reporters in Iceland. "We're watching it very closely, hour by hour."

Paramount Skydance on Tuesday completed its blockbuster $110 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, creating a Hollywood heavyweight called Skydance and handing CEO David Ellison control of one of the world's largest entertainment companies.

The deal brings together the studios behind "Mission: Impossible," "Harry Potter" and DC Studios alongside major television and streaming networks such as CBS, CNN, Paramount+ and HBO Max—forming an entertainment company spanning film, TV and news.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Oct. 5 regarding a lawsuit from Boulder, Colorado, demanding compensation from energy companies for local weather damage allegedly caused by global greenhouse gas emissions.

The question before the court, however, is not whether global warming theories hold water. It’s whether local courts throughout the United States should have the authority to extract billions of dollars from energy companies for damage allegedly caused by global emissions.

The energy companies argue that giving such power to local courts would allow municipalities to effectively impose a massive nationwide carbon tax with the potential to bankrupt the U.S. energy industry.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested a Californian woman at Los Angeles International Airport on Oct. 4 on suspicion of acting as an unregistered agent for Beijing and surveilling a close relative of a Taiwanese government official, officials said.

“Heather” Zhang Wanying, 34, who lives in Irvine, Orange County, was taken into custody by FBI Los Angeles when she attempted to leave the United States for China, according to first assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bilal Essayli.

President Donald Trump visited the southeastern Oklahoma City of Durant on Thursday, spurring Republican voters to turn out and vote in the Nov. 3 midterm elections. Hundreds spent the drizzly, dreary day in the rain, clad in red ball caps, American flag shirts, and cowboy hats, waiting to hear from the president.

“Thirty-three days from now the people of Oklahoma are going to defeat the radical left again,” Trump told the cheering crowd.

Hiring momentum slowed in September following the previous month’s blockbuster jobs report, U.S. government data show. The economy added 29,000 new jobs last month, from the downwardly revised 133,000 in August, according to a report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday.

President Donald Trump travels to Texas and Oklahoma on Thursday to begin a 32-day campaign blitz aimed at bolstering Republican candidates. Trump and Vice President JD Vance are heading to heavily Republican areas to boost party enthusiasm ahead of next month’s midterm elections.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he expects investigators to soon determine whether a man who allegedly attempted to hijack an Israel-bound flight on Wednesday had accomplices or links to Iran. Saudi authorities are questioning the co-pilot. Netanyahu told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday that Israel will be following the investigation closely.

A FlyDubai flight carrying Israeli passengers from Dubai to Israel diverted to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday in a suspected hijacking attempt that Israeli security officials said authorities were treating as a terrorist attack.

The airline confirmed that flight FZ 1073, bound for Ben Gurion Airport, experienced an incident and landed safely in Tabuk, in northwestern Saudi Arabia.

President Donald Trump told reporters on Tuesday that he will begin a 32-day tour to support Republican nominees in their campaigns ahead of the Nov. 3 elections, when voters will decide control of the House and Senate.

President Donald Trump launched a new website powered by AI, designed to make it easier for U.S. citizens to access federal services. The president spoke at an event on Tuesday, with Vice President JD Vance and prominent tech leaders, including Jensen Huang of NVIDIA, Elon Musk of SpaceX, and others.

Lindsay Clancy will return to court on Tuesday for a key hearing, as prosecutors weigh whether to retry the Massachusetts woman on murder charges for killing her three young children in 2023 and her lawyers push for the case's dismissal.

Judge William Sullivan in Plymouth, Massachusetts, scheduled the hearing after declaring a mistrial on Sept. 4, which occurred after a single juror prevented the 12-member jury from reaching a unanimous verdict on whether to convict Clancy or find her not guilty by reason of insanity.

President Donald Trump met Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Sunday night, ahead of a Sept. 29 meeting with AI industry leaders. Speaking to reporters on Sunday after arriving at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, Trump said the dinner with Amodei was scheduled for 10 p.m. on Sept. 27.

The United States and China on Sunday released lists of products covered by a $30 billion reciprocal tariff reduction deal reached following Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s three-day state visit to Washington last week. The White House released a list covering 77 types of U.S. imports from China that will be subject to tariff cuts, including fireworks, tableware, artificial flowers, blankets, bed linens, highchairs, child safety seats, toys, fish hooks, and holiday decorations.

U.S. President Donald Trump made clear during candid talks at the White House with Chinese President Xi Jinping that Chinese help for Iran is unacceptable, U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue said on Friday.

"We made it very clear to them weeks ago that, you know, any help that they would give Iran, whether it be direct or indirect, whether it be intelligence or parts or military equipment, was totally unacceptable. President Trump made that very clear again yesterday. This is an ongoing drumbeat," Perdue said in an interview with CNBC.

Actresses Susan Sarandon and Hannah Einbinder and two Democratic politicians were among 30 people arrested on Thursday as they protested outside the U.N. headquarters in New York, before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a speech to the General Assembly.

Darializa Avila Chevalier—who was endorsed by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani when she won the Democratic primary for the 13th Congressional District in June—was also arrested, along with New York City Council member Chi Ossé.

Faith and human rights leaders are holding a peaceful protest with more than 300 Falun Gong practitioners on Sept. 24 to call for an end to the Chinese Communist Party’s persecution of Falun Gong and its human rights violations against the Chinese people.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a traditional spiritual discipline of meditative exercises and moral teachings. Dr. Shan T. Lai, president of the Falun Dafa Association of Washington, DC said: “For more than 27 years, Falun Gong practitioners in China have faced imprisonment, torture, and forced organ harvesting simply for practicing their beliefs.”

A federal judge has ordered President Donald Trump to temporarily restore White House access for CNN, MS NOW, and Politico while they challenge the revocation of their press passes in court.

Federal Judge Timothy Kelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a temporary restraining order against the White House ban, reinstating hard pass access for CNN, MS NOW, and Politico in the early hours of Sept. 24.

The wife of a U.S. expert on North Korean nuclear tests who has been imprisoned in China since late 2024 said on Tuesday that the White House has assured her that President Donald Trump will ask Chinese leader Xi Jinping to free her husband when the two meet this week.

Yufang Rong said she feared that Beijing planned to try her Chinese-born husband, Youlin Chen, on fabricated espionage charges even though his U.S.-funded research was openly published, used publicly available data, and was done in collaboration with Chinese scientists.

The Department of Justice has defended Trump’s decision to ban CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House and asked a court to deny their bid to restore their access.

Trump announced the ban on Sept. 18, accusing the news outlets of constantly reporting “fiction and lies” about the government. As a result, reporters from the three organizations were denied access to the White House, while some had their press passes revoked.