Morning Brief: Israel votes in record turnout; Iran's president heads to Putin; Comey charged a third time
Plus a suspected Iranian plot at a U.K. base used by U.S. forces, the Oleshky truce, Trump's Texas swing, and the Supreme Court's emergency docket.
6 AM CT video brief · 1:26Presenter voice and image generated with AI tools.Read transcript
I'm Nora Vale with your 6 AM World Brief for Tuesday, October 27. Israel votes: turnout highest since 1981. Exit polls at 3 p.m. CT. Iran's president meets Putin. Qatar: Iran must open the Strait of Hormuz. U.K. charges two in suspected Iranian plot at RAF Fairford. James Comey charged a third time over alleged 2016 leak. Trump rallies today in Corpus Christi and Lubbock, Texas. SCOTUS: Baltimore order pending; Big Bend responses due Thursday. In national weather, from the National Weather Service: There is a Slight Risk of excessive rainfall over parts of the Southern High Plains. Our opinion. Iran must stop the threats; the blockade is working. Every vote counts this final week. Full stories and sources at WorldBriefNow.com. I'm Nora Vale.
Israelis are voting Tuesday in the first national election since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, and turnout is at its highest since 1981, the BBC reported. Final polls show Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu almost neck-and-neck with former military chief Gadi Eisenkot, but neither bloc is projected to reach the 61 seats needed for a majority; Israeli broadcasters publish exit polls at 22:00 local time (3 p.m. CT), and many soldiers' votes won't be counted until Wednesday. Netanyahu denied reports by Israel's Channel 12 and CNN that he had pushed for new strikes on Iran before the vote.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian met Qatar's emir in Moscow on Tuesday and is set to meet Vladimir Putin later in the day, after saying "the current insecurity that the US has created around the world must end," Iran International reported. Qatar's foreign ministry said Iran must show good intentions, stop threats against Gulf states and open the Strait of Hormuz for mediation to succeed, and Iran's security chief Mohsen Rezaei met Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, Fox News reported, citing Reuters. Energy firm Kpler projects that Iran's seaborne oil revenue could dry up by mid-December under the U.S. naval blockade, Fox News reported.
Britain's Crown Prosecution Service charged two London men, both 24, under the National Security Act after a counter-terrorism investigation into an incident at RAF Fairford, a staging base the U.S. military uses for operations connected to the Iran conflict, Fox News reported. Mohmed Abdulkarim is charged with assisting a foreign intelligence service, which U.K. officials identified as Iran, and Nouman Essghir with entering a prohibited place for a purpose prejudicial to the U.K.; both were due in Westminster Magistrates' Court on Tuesday.
A limited ceasefire began Tuesday in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Oleshky, where residents have been cooking garden weeds to survive, and Ukrainian officials and Russia's defense ministry say it is being respected, the BBC reported. The truce, which the White House said was secured by first lady Melania Trump, is meant to allow aid deliveries and a civilian evacuation on Friday, later than the Tuesday buses residents had been told about; Ukraine estimates about 6,000 people, including 200 children, remain in the city and surrounding areas. Elsewhere, attacks on Kyiv Monday evening killed one person and injured 14.
At an 80-minute rally Monday night at Corinth's Crossroads Arena, President Trump told supporters "I'm here because Cindy is doing great, but I just have to make sure. I can't take a chance," asked them to vote as if he were on the ballot, and said his administration has protected jobs with tariffs, deported large numbers of immigrants and reduced crime, Mississippi Today reported. The arena holds just over 7,700 people and hundreds watched outside on a Jumbotron, WMC Action News 5 reported. Tuesday, the White House schedule has him speaking at the Port of Corpus Christi at 2 p.m. CT and the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center at 6 p.m. CT.
Federal prosecutors have charged former FBI Director James Comey with transmitting national defense information and conspiracy, in a criminal information filed under seal Oct. 5 and unsealed Monday by U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, NBC News reported. Prosecutors allege Comey directed staff to speak to a New York Times reporter about an Oct. 5, 2016, article and thereby "illegally transferred classified information"; Comey's lawyers say the case is time-barred because no grand jury indicted him, and he has not been indicted. The Justice Department said filing an information to pause the statute of limitations is "a widely recognized practice," while Comey called the case "an appalling abuse of the Department of Justice."
Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Monday denied Louisiana's application to lift a Fifth Circuit stay in Louisiana v. Devon Energy Production Co. (No. 26A499), a case over Devon's conduct in Cameron Parish, the Court's docket shows. The application by Baltimore and others to pause a Texas-Justice Department agreement on deportation proceedings (No. 26A500) is fully briefed and "could come at any time," SCOTUSblog reported; the docket shows no order yet. Responses to the administration's request to resume border-wall construction in the Big Bend region are due by 4 p.m. EDT Thursday, and the November sitting begins Monday, Nov. 2.
Verified facts only. Every item is supported by the reporting or official records it links to.
Every source linked. Wire services, national news outlets, and primary documents such as whitehouse.gov releases, Supreme Court opinions and court filings.
Analysis labeled. Our point of view appears only in the Our Opinion box under each story, never mixed into the facts.
Corrections in the open. Mistakes are fixed quickly and noted publicly.
