Earthquake in Uttarakhand: 4.9-magnitude quake hits Chamoli, tremors felt across Delhi-NCR
A magnitude 4.9 earthquake struck Chamoli, Uttarakhand, with tremors felt across Delhi-NCR, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. Check epicentre, depth and latest updates.
Why ECI rejected Rahul Gandhi-led MPs’ request to meet at Parliament Annexe
The Election Commission said no political party sought a meeting until 4 pm on October 6. It said a Rahul Gandhi-led delegation of 240 MPs later sought to meet at the Parliament Annexe, which the ECI termed unusual.
Arvind Kejriwal attacks CBI raid at Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann’s camp office, alleges BJP ‘frustration’ ahead of polls
CBI searches in Chandigarh and Punjab linked to a corruption case involving Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann’s OSD Rajbir Singh Ghuman, drawing criticism from AAP leaders.
Macron trashes American free speech as riots grip France — internet unloads: ‘Enormous fool’
French President Emmanuel Macron is drawing fierce online backlash after criticizing the American conception of free speech and arguing that liberty requires a “common framework” — remarks landing as his government faces mounting pressure from nationwide student protests, school blockades and clashes with riot police across France. “The so-called American ‘free speech’ today, which some people have promoted, is the opposite of free speech,” Macron said at Complutense University in Madrid during a discussion on democracy, youth and the digital age on Sept. 29, according to a translation of his remarks. Macron argued that free speech is not absolute and must be bounded by the rights of others and respect for public order, while also arguing that the flow of information must maintain a relationship to truth. He compared those limits to restrictions against assaulting or insulting others or destroying public property. FRANCE’S TEEN RIOTS TAKE EXPLOSIVE NEW TURN AS GOVERNMENT POINTS FINGER AT HARD LEFT “There is no freedom if there is no limit to my freedom, which begins with the freedom of others and respect for a common framework. I know this when I walk down the street: my freedom cannot mean hitting you, insulting you or trashing the public space we all share,” Macron added, according to a translation to English. The remarks quickly drew backlash online, with critics seizing on the contrast between Macron’s comments on free speech and the unrest unfolding at home, where protests, blockades and clashes with police are testing his government. FRANCE ROCKED BY STUDENT RIOTS AS HUNDREDS ARRESTED, VIOLENCE SPREADS NATIONWIDE “These people are going to cling to power even if it means burning their countries to the ground,” said Federalist senior editor John Daniel Davidson. “Offended by the First Amendment while completely ignoring the fact his own country is literally burning to the ground,” wrote one person. “His country is being destroyed by riots. Does he consider that free speech,” asked another person. “Emmanuel Macron is an enormous fool,” said Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger. “Europeans are so stupid about speech,” said one user. “At this point, bringing back the Bourbons would be more dignified for France,” wrote Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee’s communication director Billy Gribbin. “The worst president France has ever had, verging on treasonous given his attempts to shut down the nation’s remarkable nuclear industry and expertise,” wrote Institute of Public Affairs senior fellow Adam Creighton. “We are still free in America and @EmmanuelMacron can pound sand,” wrote Dan Gainor. FRANCE’S VIOLENT STUDENT PROTESTS RAISE WARNING FOR AMERICA: ‘A CAUTIONARY TALE’ Macron has previously taken aim at the American conception of free speech, declaring that “free speech is pure bulls—” if people do not know how algorithms are guiding what they see online, while calling for greater transparency and “a sort of public order” to curb racist and hate speech during a Feb. 18, appearance in New Delhi, India. Protests erupted in the Paris suburbs in mid-September over teacher shortages and school resources before rapidly spreading nationwide. Demonstrators have set fires, damaged buildings and clashed with police while France’s Education Ministry said classes were fully or partially suspended at 891 schools Tuesday, while 24 schools have been burned or ransacked since the protests began, according to the Associated Press. Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment.
Russian researcher’s mystery death could be ‘far worse’ than the plague, former senior Trump official warns
The unexplained death of a researcher at a Russian anti-plague institute has one former senior U.S. arms official warning it could be ‘far worse’ than the bacteria that caused the Black Death. Marshall Billingslea, who served as President Donald Trump’s special presidential envoy for arms control, said a top Soviet bioweapons defector told him decades ago about secret work on antibiotic-resistant plague at the same facility where the recent plague-related death occurred. “This may not be just ‘the plague.’ It may be far worse,” Billingslea wrote on X. He spent much of the 1990s working on proliferation and arms control issues on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — and during that time worked with Ken Alibek, the former No. 2 official in the Soviet biological weapons program who defected to the U.S. BIOWEAPON THREAT EXPOSED AS ANTHROPIC SOUNDS ALARM ON FOREIGN ACTORS PLOTTING VIRUS EXPERIMENTS “He claimed that they had engineered a strain of plague that was antibiotic-resistant & that they had worked on plague chimeras (fusing 2 or more pathogens),” Billingslea wrote of Alibek. “He specifically called out Irkutsk for being involved in the BW program,” he added. Billingslea’s warning comes after a 28-year-old employee of the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia and the Far East died last week from what Russian authorities have described as pneumonia of undetermined origin. Russia has not said the woman died of plague and said testing found no microorganisms in her body linked to her work. The World Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday that Russian officials told the agency no plague or other high-threat pathogen had been detected among her close contacts, though they are still awaiting confirmation of what caused her fatal pneumonia. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT SCIENTIST’S ACCIDENTAL DEATH RAISES QUESTIONS AS PROBE INTO MISSING SCIENTISTS GROWS About 60% of the woman’s identified contacts have been tested so far, according to Russian authorities, with two cases of COVID-19 and two rhinovirus infections detected — but no other infectious disease pathogens. Still, the unexplained death at a facility that works with dangerous pathogens has drawn scrutiny from biosecurity experts — including questions about why the cause remains unknown. Kevin Esvelt, an MIT professor who studies biological security and catastrophic pandemic risks, said Russia’s latest explanation suggests the researcher did not die from plague while leaving unanswered what killed her. “If we take the Russian authorities at their word, it is not plague,” Esvelt wrote Tuesday. “But untargeted research-grade sequencing reliably identifies pathogens, and people seldom die of pneumonia without pathogens, let alone 28-year-olds,” he added. “It would be surprising if they did not know the cause.” Esvelt cautioned that more alarming explanations remain hypothetical. “The concerning possibility is still only a possibility,” he wrote. The questions surrounding the death come against the backdrop of the Soviet Union’s documented history of secretly developing biological weapons, including weaponized plague, and U.S. assessments that elements of that program continued after the Soviet collapse. “Russia maintains an offensive biological weapons program and is in violation of its obligations under the BWC,” a State Department official told Fox News Digital, referring to the Biological Weapons program, an international treaty that prohibits the development, production and stockpiling of biological weapons. “With respect to the situation in Irkutsk, we will not speculate while key facts remain unconfirmed It is important that Russian authorities share clear, factual information about the circumstances of this case.” The department said the program “has continued and evolved” under the Russian Federation and that Moscow continues activities prohibited under the convention. Russia has repeatedly denied maintaining an offensive biological weapons program. The U.S. assessment does not establish any connection between Russia’s biological weapons program and the researcher’s death in Irkutsk, and no such connection has been confirmed. NEW YORK DECLARES MEASLES DISASTER EMERGENCY AS CASES SURGE IN PENNSYLVANIA The Soviet program Billingslea referenced was one of the world’s largest clandestine biological weapons efforts. Alibek, born Kanatjan Alibekov, rose to become the first deputy chief of Biopreparat, the ostensibly civilian network that formed a major part of the Soviet biological weapons apparatus, before defecting to the United States in 1992. After his defection, Alibek provided U.S. officials with extensive information about the scale and capabilities of the Soviet program. He described Soviet scientists working to weaponize pathogens including plague and developing strains designed to withstand antibiotics. His claims about some aspects of the Soviet program have faced scrutiny over the years, making independent documentation particularly important. But the existence and enormous scale of the Soviet biological weapons effort — conducted despite Moscow’s 1975 ratification of the Biological Weapons Convention — is well established. The Irkutsk institute says it was founded in 1934 as a scientific and operational center for combating plague. Its mission later expanded to other highly dangerous diseases, including cholera and anthrax, and it describes itself today as a research and anti-epidemic facility responsible for helping protect the region from infectious disease. The Trump administration has said it is closely monitoring the situation and pressed Moscow for greater transparency about what happened. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that while travel between the U.S. and Russia remains limited, an infectious disease could quickly spread beyond Russia’s borders. “If something like that gets out, it could quickly spread,” Rubio said. President Donald Trump said the U.S. would offer assistance to Russia if needed. “I hate to see them having it,” Trump told reporters Monday. “It’s a rough disease.”
Liberal justices look for ‘escape hatch’ as high-stakes climate case lands at Supreme Court, experts say
Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor’s repeated questions concerning whether the Supreme Court has jurisdiction to hear a high-profile climate case that could expose oil companies to lawsuits across the country steered conservative lawyers to believe that the liberal justices are seeking an “off-ramp.” “The fact that they kept going back to trying to create a jurisdictional problem tells me they don’t feel confident that they have the votes in this space,” Carrie Severino, president of JCN, a conservative judicial group, told Fox News Digital. “Jackson and Sotomayor were looking for an escape hatch.” The Supreme Court began its new term Monday, hearing its first oral arguments for Suncor v. Boulder, in which they will rule on whether state tort laws can be used to seek damages from oil companies for climate change, even when the alleged harms are occurring outside the state or continent. The justices will also rule on whether the Supreme Court has jurisdiction to hear this case now, as the case is still before the Colorado Supreme Court. The case before the high court is in an unusual procedural posture, meaning the justices could resolve it without ever reaching the blockbuster state-versus-federal power fight at its center. That dispute centers on whether Colorado can use its own laws to seek damages for alleged harms caused by emissions from other states or whether it’s an issue for the federal government and Congress to regulate. SUPREME COURT BEGINS NEW TERM WITH HIGH-PROFILE LOOK AT CLEAN AIR AND FEDERAL AUTHORITY “The questions by Jackson and Sotomayor trying to say it would be premature for the court to issue an opinion are simply the liberal justices trying to find an off-ramp for the case because they are afraid they will be outvoted on the main issue: does federal law such as the Clean Air Act preempt all state claims like those asserted here,” Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow with Advancing American Freedom, told Fox News Digital. While questioning Suncor attorney Kannon Shanmugam, Jackson suggested the dispute may have reached the Supreme Court too soon, calling it “premature from the standpoint of this court exercising its jurisdiction.” She also repeatedly questioned why the court couldn’t wait to hear the case, saying the court doesn’t “have the whole set of facts” and that the court doesn’t “really know enough to be confident” that the theories posed are applicable. “It feels to me like the defendants … are bringing it back to federal court before the state courts have really had a chance to sort out who is the source, what is their allegation with respect to how this causation is happening,” Jackson told Principal Deputy Solicitor General Sarah Harris, who argued in support of Suncor. Meanwhile, Sotomayor refused to drop her line of questioning on jurisdiction with Shanmugam, proposing that the Supreme Court send the case back to the Colorado Supreme Court. “If we’re unsure of your characterization, because there’s certainly a number of amici brief who disagree with that characterization, shouldn’t we be certifying this question to the Colorado court instead of us deciding it? We have to be sure of our jurisdiction before we take it,” Sotomayor said. Republican Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall told Fox News Digital it was clear that the liberal justices were trying to cast doubt on whether they have jurisdiction. SUPREME COURT CAN RESTORE SANITY AND STOP THE LEFT’S RADICAL CLIMATE AGENDA “Well, I think you saw both Justice Jackson and Justice Sotomayor try to find an out for this court, basically saying the court doesn’t have jurisdiction at this stage of the case to be able to make a final ruling. I think that you saw the advocates on behalf of Suncor be able to distinguish that.” If the Supreme Court declines to reach the federalism issue, the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling allowing Boulder’s state-law claims to proceed would remain in place, leaving the broader question of how far states can use tort law to pursue climate claims against energy companies unresolved. Chief Justice John Roberts pressed Boulder attorney Kevin Russell on whether a Boulder win could trigger similar lawsuits nationwide. Russell said there are legal limits, but acknowledged to Justice Clarence Thomas that Boulder’s theory could allow other fossil-fuel businesses to be sued. “The chief justice and the court do not like issuing rulings with no limiting principles, rulings that could open up unlimited litigation and claims. Kannon Shanmugam, the lawyer for Suncor, emphasized this again at the very end of the oral argument when he pointed out that there are not only 90,000 political jurisdictions that could sue, but individuals could also sue claiming damages from global warming,” von Spakovsky said. “And he also pointed out something the conservative majority frowns upon: that Boulder is trying to resolve a major policy issue in the courts instead of in the legislative branches,” von Spakovsky continued. SUPREME COURT KICKS OFF NEW TERM WITH FRESH QUESTIONS OVER ITS LEGITIMACY AND ITS FUTURE Supporters of Suncor say the lawsuits could “bankrupt” oil companies and cause the price for consumers to go up. “It’s to basically create a carbon tax on both producers and emitters across the country, which would include, by the way, my cattlemen in Alabama producing beef for our country, those that are creating concrete to be able to build structures and be able to grow our economy,” Marshall told Fox News. “They ultimately want to bankrupt that industry to have their preferred climate change policies be in play.” “They’re literally addressing behavior that takes place all over the world,” Utah Attorney General Derek Brown told Fox News Digital. “They want to regulate not just what happens in Colorado, but what happens in my state of Utah or in Saudi Arabia. That’s not the way the system works. So, really, this case comes down to one main issue and that is who gets to decide things like energy policy. And ultimately, under our system, it should be Congress.” Meanwhile, Boulder alleged ExxonMobil
Biden conspicuously absent from campaign trail as Obama, Harris step up for midterm push
Former President Joe Biden has been largely absent from the campaign trail as Democrats fight to win back House and Senate majorities in November, even as former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Kamala Harris step up efforts to boost the party’s candidates. Biden, 83, has kept a limited public schedule while battling advanced, metastatic prostate cancer. He has endorsed candidates and is helping Democrats raise money, according to a source in Biden’s political circle. But the former president has made few political appearances this year. The contrast is increasingly visible with four weeks to go until Election Day. Obama is cutting ads for Senate and gubernatorial candidates, helping the party fundraise and preparing to hit the trail during the closing stretch of the midterm campaign. Harris, the Democrats’ 2024 presidential nominee, is also campaigning across key battleground states, including a recent stop in Michigan with Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed. MIDTERM MATH: THE THREE FORCES THAT COULD STOP A DEMOCRATIC BLUE WAVE Biden has appeared at just a handful of political events this year. He spoke in February at a reception honoring his 2020 South Carolina primary victory, which propelled him toward the Democratic nomination and eventually the presidency. In June, he addressed a Maryland Democratic Party event. Longtime Democratic strategist Michael Ceraso told Fox News Digital that some in the party’s elite and fundraising class are concerned that “if Biden were to be pushed out there in any sort of way for virtual or in-person opportunities, he could be a liability.” Veteran Democratic strategist Maria Cardona had a different take, telling Fox News Digital, “There are still a ton of Americans who love Joe Biden.” Biden did weigh in on a handful of Democratic primary showdowns this cycle. The former president endorsed former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms for governor. Bottoms, who served as a senior advisor in the Biden administration, won the Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nomination. The former president also backed Dan Koh, another Biden administration veteran, who captured the Democratic nomination in Massachusetts’ 6th Congressional District. HEAD HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS REPORTING ON FORMER PRESIDENT BIDEN Biden is also advocating on behalf of efforts to secure democracy. “American democracy begins and ends at the ballot box. There is no more important civic duty nor fundamental right to be defended,” the former president wrote on social media last month, as he cast his ballot in his home state of Delaware’s primary. “Voting defines our freedom and makes everything possible.” But mostly, Biden has served as a foil for President Donald Trump, who Biden ousted from the White House in the 2020 election. Four years later, Biden ended his re-election bid after a disastrous debate performance against Trump in their 2024 rematch. Trump and fellow Republicans are repeatedly blaming Biden for high prices at the gas and diesel pumps, even though public opinion polls indicate most Americans now point fingers at Trump and his administration. Biden left the presidency with poor approval ratings, as he faced high inflation, foreign policy divides, and lingering questions about his ability to serve in office. He stood at 42% approval and 57% disapproval in January 2025, in the final Fox News poll during his White House tenure. Post-presidency, Biden held a 71% favorable rating among Democrats in a CNN poll conducted in May. But Biden’s favorable rating among Democrats was 25 points lower than Obama’s. DEMOCRACY ’26: STAY UP TO DATE WITH THE FOX NEWS ELECTION HUB Meanwhile, some Democrats still blame him for Trump’s 2024 re-election, arguing that Biden did not get out of the race in time to allow Harris to mount a successful campaign. Ceraso, a veteran of two presidential campaigns, pointed to the 2024 election and told Fox News Digital that Biden left a “bad taste with some Democrats, especially within the party’s elite and fundraising class.” He added, “I do not think Biden has the same level of charisma as Vice President Harris and former President Obama, and if I’m organizing an event to get thousands of people to come out, I would not do that around Biden.” Cardona, a Democratic National Committee member, said Biden’s health is stifling requests for campaign trail appearances. “I guarantee you no one would try to bother him to come campaign for them while, at 83 years old, he is battling cancer and in the toughest fight of his life,” Cardona emphasized. Fox News Digital reached out to a Biden spokesman for comment, but did not receive a response at the time this story was published.
Biden-era FBI’s ‘Nixonian’ Trump family surveillance draws scrutiny from unlikely corner
Revelations that the Biden-era FBI tracked Trump family travel and top aide Susie Wiles’ phone records received a blistering rebuke from a former top Democratic official who compared the behavior to Nixon-era abuses of federal power that surfaced amid the Watergate scandal. The FBI investigation codenamed “Plasmic Echo,” later taken over by special counsel Jack Smith, examined Trump’s alleged improper retention of classified and national-defense material and possible obstruction. Records show agents tracked first lady Melania Trump’s and Barron Trump’s travel while planning the 2022 Mar-a-Lago search and later logged metadata from now-Chief of Staff Susie Wiles’ calls with attorneys, journalists and others.” Julian Epstein, the former chief counsel for the House Judiciary Committee’s Democratic bench, compared the situation to the scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon. JACK SMITH’S PROBE SWEPT UP FOX NEWS, OTHER MEDIA COMMUNICATIONS WITH GOVERNMENT SOURCES “It’s hard to think of good justifications for this. To me, it feels a little Nixonian,” said Epstein, who also served as staff director to Democrats on a second powerful panel, the House Oversight Committee. “If this report is true, then it’s pretty bad. If true, then those in charge at the time better have some darn good explanations for surveillance of family members and advisors talking privately to lawyers or exercising their free-speech rights with the news media,” he said. Nixon, a California Republican, maintained an “Enemies List” developed by White House aides around top adviser Charles Colson and later formalized by White House counsel John Dean. Dean – now a vocal critic of Republicans like Trump – once described it in a 1971 memo as intended to “use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.” Epstein questioned what legal justification investigators had for monitoring the contacts, particularly those involving lawyers and journalists. VETERAN DEM BREAKS PARTY LINE AS JACK SMITH SPYING SCANDAL GRIPS CAPITOL HILL “[That] seems like a stretch,” he said. Epstein appeared to be among the few prominent Democrats publicly criticizing the newly disclosed investigative tactics Tuesday, including the tracking of Melania and Barron Trump’s travel and the collection of Wiles’ call metadata. SECRET PHONE-RECORD SEIZURE SPARKS PERSONAL LAWSUIT FROM GOP SENATOR Fox News Digital reached out to Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat who just months ago similarly broke party-silence to object to prior revelations from Smith’s probe. Blumenthal told Fox News Digital in July that Republicans were right to be upset that some of their communications were subpoenaed without their notice. “I think we need to have more facts. Look into it. Republicans are rightly concerned about the possible breach of norms and improper access to email,” Blumenthal said at the time. In a separate disclosure on July 14, the GOP-led Senate Judiciary Committee released records showing that Smith’s 2020-election investigation obtained and reviewed text messages exchanged between Trump White House officials and 44 current and former members of Congress, including Republicans and Democrats. Theo Wold, a former acting assistant U.S. attorney general under Trump who later served as Idaho’s solicitor general, said the new disclosures involving Melania, Barron and Wiles vindicate Republicans who have long warned of a so-called “Deep State.” “But now we know that DOJ, the FBI, and the wider intelligence community have targeted Catholics, homeschool families, pro-life prayer warriors, and even the then-leading Republican Presidential candidate and his family,” Wold said. “The Deep State is real. They have abused their authority for political gain. They have wielded government power against innocent Americans to coordinate their attack on opposition political figures and dissident movements.” The White House also condemned the newly disclosed tracking of Trump family travel and collection of Wiles’ call metadata. “Jack Smith’s surveillance operation was a disgraceful abuse of government power. Spying on political opponents is weaponization of law enforcement, plain and simple,” White House spokesperson Lauren Bis told Fox News Digital. “Those responsible must be held accountable.” On one day in March 2023, documents showed investigators logged metadata for 39 calls made or received by Wiles. Calls to and from multiple campaign contacts, a lawyer and an extension associated with Melania Trump were among those logged in Wiles’ phone metadata. SIGN UP TO GET THE POLITICS NEWSLETTER Former RNC official Elizabeth Pipko highlighted Wiles as someone that critics should be emulating, not celebrating the surveillance of. “She managed a historic and victorious presidential campaign and became the first woman to serve as White House chief of staff. Her story should inspire young women. Instead, hatred from President Trump’s opponents teaches young people that if you work for the ‘wrong’ candidate, you and those around you can become targets,” Pipko told Fox News Digital. The revelations come after Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, told Fox News Digital exclusively that Smith’s probe had also captured communications with dozens of journalists, including some from Fox News. Fox News Digital reached out to counsel for Smith for comment.
Republicans sound alarm over hidden midterm stakes that could reshape Supreme Court for decades
Republicans are quietly warning that the true consequence of losing the Senate could be one that shapes the makeup of courts and the law for years to come. While Republican candidates and surrogates on the campaign trail are warning of a rise in socialism and a return to Biden-era policy should Democrats flip Congress this cycle, some are pushing a different message: if Democrats win the Senate, they’ll block future Supreme Court nominees. “I think the key over the next 34 days is bringing home Republicans. And I think it’s important to remind some of these Republicans who are not energized yet that the Supreme Court’s on the ballot,” Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., told Fox News Digital. BATTLE OVER DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME ERUPTS AS PUSH TO STOP CHANGING CLOCKS HITS SENATE WALL Daines, who chaired the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) in 2024, played a key role in flipping the Senate two years ago. That election was dominated by pocketbook issues, much like this midterm cycle, and Democrats have pounced upon that message. But the Supreme Court and the implications of the balance of power in the Senate are a message Daines contended the GOP wasn’t pushing enough. “I mentioned that to the White House. And it’s — that’s not a silver bullet, it’s a silver buckshot,” of several issues Republicans should be talking about, Daines said. If Trump doesn’t have a GOP majority in the upper chamber, he said, “if we have a vacancy, Sotomayor, Clarence Thomas, who knows — we could not, President Trump could not move through a Supreme Court justice.” DEMS HAND GOP FRESH MIDTERM WEAPON BY OPPOSING WIDELY USED VOTER ID The high court is aging, with conservative stalwarts on the bench, Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas, 78, and Samuel Alito, 76, nearing octogenarian status. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, 72, and Chief Justice John Roberts, 71, aren’t that far behind. “The Supreme Court as we know it would cease to exist under Troy Jackson, Abdul El-Sayed and James Talarico, who are hell-bent on replacing it with a bloated, lawless body designed to advance Democrats’ socialist agenda,” NRSC spokeswoman Bernadette Breslin told Fox News Digital. Speculation has swirled over Alito after NPR earlier this year published a report declaring his retirement before swiftly retracting it. Alito added some fuel to that fire, however, during an interview with CBS earlier this month. When asked if he was considering retirement, he admitted to considering it earlier this year, and noted that “it’s something I think that somebody at my age has to think about every term.” DEMOCRATS THINK A BLUE WAVE IS BUILDING. HERE ARE 3 FORCES THAT COULD STOP IT Democrats haven’t been keen to support several of Trump’s nominees for a variety of positions throughout the government over the last two years. Notably, Republicans went nuclear last year to change the Senate’s rules to move through bundles of nominees that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Democrats were blocking. And Schumer suggested that a Supreme Court pick, should there be a vacancy, and other positions in the judiciary may suffer the same fate. “The bottom line is one of the reasons that we want to make sure we do everything we can to take back the Senate is not let Trump put such horrible justices, MAGA justices on the Supreme Court and the lower courts,” Schumer said. Daines noted that sometimes voters look for a shortcut to head to the polls, and that the Supreme Court being a quiet issue on the ballot could very well be that path to energizing a Republican base to getting out and voting as the midterm cycle winds down. “Without a Republican majority, President Trump will not be able to move his Supreme Court nominee through, and that’s a nominee that’ll be on the bench for 25 years,” Daines said. “We need Republicans to connect those dots. Disgruntled Republicans in Texas, come home and vote for Ken Paxton, because the Supreme Court’s on the ballot.”
A surprising industry is fueling a new rush for gold — and it’s not slowing down
Investors have long prized gold as a hedge against inflation and economic uncertainty, but one of the world’s fastest-growing industries is now fueling a new source of demand for the precious metal. The buildout of artificial intelligence (AI) is driving investment in advanced semiconductors, servers and the sprawling data centers needed to power the technology. That expansion also requires a range of materials used in high-performance electronics, including gold. And the AI boom is creating a growing need at a time when gold is already historically expensive. Despite those high prices, tech companies aren’t necessarily switching to cheaper materials — suggesting demand for golf could continue to grow alongside AI. A QUIET RUSH FOR GOLD IS SWEEPING THE GLOBE — HERE’S WHY COUNTRIES ARE STOCKPILING IT Gold is valued in electronics for its conductivity, reliability and resistance to corrosion — and its role in some technology applications is proving resilient despite trading at roughly $4,153 an ounce on Oct. 5, up nearly 6%, or about $225, from a year earlier. Joseph Cavatoni, a gold market expert and senior market strategist for North America at the World Gold Council, said companies would typically consider cheaper alternatives after developing technology that relies on gold. But that isn’t necessarily happening. “They might pioneer a technology with gold involved and then say, ‘Let’s find something cheaper like tungsten to replace it,’” Cavatoni told Fox News Digital. “But what we’re finding in this case is they’re not.” ONE OF THE WORLD’S HOTTEST INDUSTRIES IS SPARKING A BLUE-COLLAR JOBS BOOM Technology demand is already showing signs of growth. Gold demand from the sector rose 2% from a year earlier to 80.4 metric tons in the second quarter, according to the World Gold Council. Electronics demand climbed 4% to 68.3 tons, fueled by AI infrastructure, high-end semiconductors and advanced components. Cavatoni said gold can offer advantages over substitutes in applications such as chip production and heat conduction. The AI sector may also be less sensitive to elevated gold prices because relatively small amounts of the metal are needed. “This is a rapidly growing space that’s less sensitive to price,” Cavatoni said. “It’s going to likely continue to grow as the AI space grows.” Still, technology remains a small part of the overall gold market compared with investment, central-bank buying and jewelry. Cavatoni said it is “less likely to be a driver of the price of gold.” For now, Cavatoni described technology as an increasingly important contributor to gold demand that “doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon.”