Ukraine sends 650 drones toward Moscow; Trump approves firing squad for Fort Hood killer; Kagan won’t block Paramount-Warner merger
Morning: Yemen’s government says it retook Mokha as Houthis target Saudi airports; Iran calls U.S. talks ‘meaningless’; Kenya confirms first Ebola case; Trump signs diesel tax relief; DOJ moves to strip citizenship from 40; justices hear Intel 401(k) case today.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 650 Ukrainian drones headed toward the Moscow region between 8:30 p.m. Monday and 5 a.m. Tuesday Moscow time, with most destroyed at long range and 105 downed on approach to the capital, Russia’s state news agency TASS reported, calling it one of the largest attempted attacks on Moscow in two years. Moscow region Governor Andrei Vorobyov said two people were killed, a 20-year-old man in Radumlya and a 71-year-old man found under the rubble of a house in Domodedovo, and nine were injured, TASS said. Kyiv Post reported that one apparent target was the Volodarskaya fuel depot, which Russian outlet Astra called the region’s largest and which supplies Moscow’s Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Sheremetyevo airports; on Monday President Trump blamed Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries for high U.S. gasoline prices.
Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces said they took control of the Red Sea port of Mokha “following fierce battles against Iranian-backed Houthi terrorist militia” and launched a “strategic offensive” toward the capital Sanaa, CNBC reported; CNBC could not independently verify the claims, and the Houthis reportedly denied that Mokha had fallen. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree claimed ballistic missile, cruise missile and drone attacks on Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport and a refinery in Rabigh, Euronews reported, while Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation authority said airports in Jazan and Najran were targeted Monday evening, injuring three people, according to CNBC. The U.S. Embassy in Riyadh warned Americans to be vigilant about possible drone or missile attacks, and Brent crude traded at about $100.12 a barrel Tuesday morning, the outlets reported.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Monday that negotiations with the United States were meaningless, saying, “We have been attacked three times so far following talks, and this shows that they are not seeking dialogue; rather, their goal is to overthrow the Islamic Republic,” Iran International reported, while President Trump said he remained open to direct talks. UK Maritime Trade Operations said a tanker was struck by an unidentified projectile in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, starting an engine-room fire with no casualties reported, the third tanker hit in two days. U.S. Central Command said its forces have redirected 130 commercial vessels, disabled three and destroyed 13 since resuming the naval blockade on July 14, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Iran’s rial hit record lows and Iran loaded no crude onto tankers last month, the outlet reported.
The threat of an Iranian drone attack led the U.S. to move 12 B-1 bombers from RAF Fairford back to the United States, after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps plotted to destroy U.S. aircraft and kill American service members at the base, the Wall Street Journal and New York Times reported Monday, according to the New York Post; U.S. officials described the potential attack as “complex, multipronged.” Vice President JD Vance said the bombers were moved “out of an abundance of caution” and said, “We do feel with some confidence that the Iranians are trying to do what the Iranian state has done for 49 years, which is engage in acts of terrorism against the United States,” the Post reported. British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said there were “strong indications” Iran’s government played a part in the earlier plot against the airfield, which police said involved five British suspects planning a van bomb attack.
Satellite images taken Sept. 30 by commercial provider Vantor show what security analysts believe are eight K-8 light attack jets and more than two dozen support vehicles on a runway still under construction at the new China-Laos joint training facility at Ban Keun outside Vientiane, Reuters reported in an exclusive. Some regional military attaches and scholars say the site could become China’s first fully fledged overseas military base in Southeast Asia, and analyst Alexander Neill said the airfield appears engineered for a runway extension that would let larger aircraft operate. During the Vietnam War era, Ban Keun was “Lima Site 44,” used by the CIA-owned airline Air America, according to records a Library of Congress specialist shared with Reuters; China’s defense ministry did not immediately respond.
Kenya recorded its first confirmed Ebola case, a Kenyan citizen who had lived in the Democratic Republic of Congo and arrived in Nairobi on Saturday, and the patient has since died, Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale said, Reuters reported; 28 contacts, including family members and health workers, have been identified. Capital FM reported that the man traveled by road from Congo to Kampala, Uganda, then took Jambojet flight JM8523 to Nairobi, underwent routine screening at the airport, and was confirmed with the Bundibugyo strain; officials are also tracing 23 passengers and four crew from that flight. Congo is battling its largest-ever Ebola outbreak, with more than 8,000 cases and more than 4,000 deaths, according to Reuters.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth recommended, and President Trump approved, “death by U.S. Army firing squad for convicted terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan, the jihadist who opened fire on unarmed American soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell wrote on X Monday, adding that the Secretary of the Army will set the time and place, Fox News and the New York Post reported. Hasan killed 13 people and wounded 32 in the November 2009 attack and was sentenced to death by a military court in 2013; the Supreme Court declined to review his appeal after a court upheld the sentence in early 2025, Fox News reported. If carried out, it would be the first U.S. military execution since 1961, and Hegseth called the decision “Justice,” the Post reported.
President Trump signed an executive order at his Grand Island, Nebraska, rally Monday that waives the off-road requirement for tax-exempt red-dyed diesel, the Washington Examiner reported. The order, posted on whitehouse.gov, directs the Treasury secretary to decide within five days whether relief is authorized under 26 U.S.C. 7508A and, if so, defer certain diesel excise taxes incurred from Oct. 5 through Dec. 31, 2026, without penalties or interest, and to have the IRS announce it will not penalize dyed diesel used on highways in that period. It also tells Treasury to explore ways, including legislation, to forgive the deferred taxes, and says, “Farmers and truckers are essential to the American way of life.”
The Justice Department said Monday it has filed denaturalization actions in multiple federal district courts against 40 naturalized U.S. citizens accused of serious offenses, the Washington Examiner reported. “Today’s announcement marks the largest denaturalization effort in modern history,” Attorney General Todd Blanche said, adding that the defendants range from a person convicted of espionage to people convicted of sexual offenses against minors. The complaints were filed between Aug. 21 and Oct. 2, and Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said, “Every single one of these individuals lied their way into U.S. citizenship,” according to the department.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio began a tour of NATO allies Tuesday in Iceland, calling it “a good friend,” and will visit Greece and Portugal before returning to Washington on Thursday, the Associated Press reported. Rubio said on social media the Iceland visit was meant to “advance our shared priorities: a secure Arctic, stronger commercial and energy ties, and closer defense cooperation.” The AP said Iceland, a NATO member with no army, has been uneasy about the administration’s Arctic intentions, and that the administration sees Greece as key to exporting U.S. liquefied natural gas to southeastern and central Europe.
Justice Elena Kagan, who handles emergency applications from the 9th Circuit, on Monday denied without explanation a last-minute request by five consumers to stop the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger from closing Tuesday, the Washington Examiner reported. The consumers argued the deal is anticompetitive even after 12 state attorneys general reached a settlement that U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin approved last week; their case had already been rejected by the district court and appeals court, the Examiner and Screen Daily reported. The settlement creates an editorial-independence board for the combined company, which brings CBS News and CNN under one roof, the outlets said.
The Supreme Court hears one hour of argument Tuesday in Anderson v. Intel Corporation Investment Policy Committee, No. 25-498, with Matthew Wessler for the workers, Charles McCloud for Intel and Assistant to the Solicitor General Aimee Brown arguing for the United States in support of Intel, according to the Court’s day call. The question is whether workers who claim a retirement-plan fiduciary acted imprudently because funds underperformed must point to a “meaningful benchmark,” a comparable fund, to get past the first stage of a lawsuit under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, Cornell’s Legal Information Institute said. Former Intel employee Winston Anderson and others say Intel’s plan managers imprudently added hedge funds and private equity; a district court and the 9th Circuit dismissed the suit for lack of such a benchmark, while the 6th Circuit has said one is not always needed.
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